Does Mashrafe's fitness reflect BPL's competitiveness?

Former Bangladesh ODI captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza turned heads when he got a wicket with his very first delivery in this season's Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) on Friday.

The veteran, however, has been struggling with fitness issues following his return to cricket after a long break and his franchise's decision to give him the captaincy raised questions about BPL's inherent lack of quality.

It had been some eight months since he had last played competitive cricket in the Dhaka Premier League.

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BPL: A league without a purpose

Mashrafe is leading Sylhet Strikers this BPL, having won the franchise tournament the most times as skipper for various franchises in a decorated career. He had played the match against Chattogram Challengers which his side lost by seven wickets. Although he got a wicket off his first delivery, the end was not sweet as Chattogram's Najibullah Zadran smashed him for 16 runs in three deliveries of the 19th over to finish off the game.

Mashrafe yesterday came for his first practice session this season and worked on his batting. It could be surmised that the BPL's grind could be a tough hurdle for the veteran. While his dedication for the game is still an example, playing him puts the team's plans regarding BPL into doubt.

When he arrived at the field, many were checking the state of his legs and after his batting session, which was of low-intensity against spinners, Mashfare had difficulty taking off his pads.

"Actually, rather than Mashrafe bhai's performance, him just being in the field is the main motivation for us," Zakir Hasan, who scored an unbeaten 70 off 43 deliveries in the defeat to Chattogram, said at the press briefing when asked about the veteran's involvement.

"Him being there makes decision-making easy which is what I felt and that's important for us," Zakir added.

When asked whether Mashrafe would feature more as a batter than a bowler in their next game, Zakir said: "I think it would be better to ask bhaiya (Mashrafe) the question instead of me since he batted for the first time this season in a practice session. He came in previous sessions too but maybe he is trying to prepare himself well with the bat."

While there are players available for captaincy including Najmul Hossain Shanto, the stand-in skipper for Bangladesh across formats, Sylhet went for the tried and tested virtues of Mashrafe.

There were speculations prior to the start of the tournament on whether Mashrafe would captain the side but such speculations subsided once an official press release informed of the captaincy assignment. There are also whispers that he did not want to take the captaincy role but did so due to the franchise's request.

The BPL once injected rules such as making it mandatory to have a 140 km/h pacer in the attack for the sides. While BPL appeared to have standards falling over the years, last season brought some freshness in terms of competitiveness. Only time will tell time will tell if the resurgence of competitiveness would sustain given the fitness standard of one of its key players.