Old DOHS retain title

Old DOHS retained their Premier Cricket League title with a five-run victory over Bangladesh Biman, but it was a match and a result soured by controversy.

The trouble started when Biman appeared well on course for victory when, thanks to 109 from Javed Omar Belim, they needed only 30 with five wickets and ten overs in hand. But the innings was then rocked by three questionable leg-before decisions. Tempers became really frayed when Shahriar Hossain was given out caught at short cover despite protests that the ball had bounced well short of Steve Tikolo.

With the last pair at the wicket, a local paper reported that Biman's players were yelling for the two batsmen not to let the ball hit their pads. As DOHS celebrated their win, Biman's players and officials mockingly joined in.

Akram Khan, the DOHS captain, denied anything untoward happened. "It is not unusual to see one or two bad decisions in a match," he told the Daily Star. "I don't see anything wrong in it. Actually it is almost a habit for many to smell a rat when someone achieved anything in the country."

"If it is the standard of umpiring nobody would show their interest to make a good team," Ziaur Rashid Rupom, the Biman manager, said. "Everybody should understand that we are a Test playing nation and this kind of attitude will take us nowhere."

But the same paper noted that there has been talk of umpires favouring DOHS and that last year the side was also accused of benefiting from umpires. "The situation was at its worst in the last league match against Brothers Union when an umpire called a no-ball after the last DOHS batsman was clean bowled," the report concluded.