Sylhet Strikers had a woeful start in this year's Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) as they lost their opening three matches and two of them were in front of their crazy home fans at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.

BPL isn't a kind of tournament where home and away system is followed as only three venues -- Dhaka, Sylhet and Chattogram -- are used to host the matches of the seven different franchises, each named after different divisions.

But like in previous years, fans in Sylhet are leaving no stone unturned in showing their support for the team named after their city, and for the past week and so, from galleries to roads and hotels to restaurants, Sylhet people were seen talking about their team's underwhelming performance.

Sylhet played their first three games against tournament favourites Rangpur Riders (two games) and Fortune Barishal (one) and as expected both teams are currently leading the points table. But since they started to play against similar-strength teams, they took no time to get results -- leading to fans turning up in large numbers in every Sylhet game to cheer for their side.

On Sunday, Sylhet registered their second successive victory in the tournament when they beat Khulna Tigers by eight runs in a hard-fought contest and the victory came within 48 hours after they beat Dhaka Capitals by three wickets to open their account.

"When you play at home, there is a plus point as well as a negative point. I think the fans [of Sylhet Strikers] have so much emotion for their side and that's why they get upset and when we play well, they say good things. I think it's good because players also remain very energetic because of it," said Sylhet skipper Ariful Haque, who was criticised heavily by the Sylheti fans for his poor captaincy at the start of the campaign but has now played two crucial cameos (13-ball 21 and 15-ball 28) in last two games to silent his critics.

Meanwhile, Khulna took a totally opposite route to Sylhet as they seemed to lose their initial momentum after coming here in Sylhet where they suffered back-to-back defeats.

Khulna started their tournament with successive victories over Chittagong Kings and Dhaka and they had a six-day break before starting their Sylhet phase. It seemed the layoff backfired for them as they lost both of their Sylhet phase games to Durbar Rajshahi and Sylhet, and now they will face league-leaders Rangpur, who won six successive matches so far in the meet, in their last Sylhet phase game today.

"I think it doesn't matter. All are professional players. Still, It [the long break] can be an issue as T20 is a game of momentum. There can be a break in our momentum. Hopefully, we can get it again soon," Abu Hider Rony, Khulna's bowling all-rounder, said.