Chattogram Challengers vs Comilla Warriors, Bangladesh Premier League 2020, Today Match Prediction 31 Dec 2019

cgc vs caw Match Prediction & Analysis

The 27th match in the ongoing edition of the Bangladesh Premier League will see the top dogs Chattogram Challengers taking on the relatively struggling Cumilla Warriors in Dhaka. It is set to be a battle between two batting power-houses with the duo of Dawid Malan and Imrul Kayes standing up for their respective teams.

Chattogram Challengers on an overall basis have been very good until now. In their last fixture, Chattogram put in a superb bowling performance which was led by the duo of Ryan Burl and Muktar Ali to restrict hosts Dhaka Platoon to just 124-9. Even though the chase was pretty slow, skipper Imrul Kayes ensured that his team sailed home with an unbeaten 54 off 53 balls.

On the other hand, Cumilla Warriors succumbed to their 5th defeat of the season with four of them coming in succession. The match was put almost out of reach when Cumilla's bowlers conceded 190 runs with the likes of Afif Hossain, Shoaib Malik and Andre Russell making merry for the Rajshahi Royals. In return, Bangladesh international player Soumya Sarkar finally broke his long streak of not scoring a fifty with a stunning 88-run knock but the others failed to provide enough support. Eventually, Cumilla lost by a margin of 15 runs. Cumilla had to endure a very similar scenario when they took Chattogram Challengers a few matches ago too. With the bowlers leaking 238 runs, even some lusty hitting from Dawid Malan, Dasun Shanaka and Abu Hider Rony proved to be 16 runs short of the target.

TEAMS PREVIEW

Chattogram Challengers Preview

Chattogram Challengers have one of the best batting line-ups in the entire tournament. Even in the absence of the exciting Avishka Fernando, players like Lendl Simmons, Chadwick Walton, and Ryan Burl promise fireworks while skipper Imrul Kayes tends to be the glue amongst the aforementioned aggressive players. Kayes and Walton, in particular, have been exemplary with their consistency to score 289 and 265 runs respectively.

While Simmons has been inconsistent, his quality is well-known and a big knock could be just around the corner. Further, the talented Nurul Hasan is also a pretty underrated player who provided good finishing touches to Chattogram's batting efforts so far.

With the ball, Mehedi Hasan Rana has been the stand-out bowler with 13 wickets while Rubel Hossain and Muktar Ali have also been effective with 8 scalps each. English import Liam Plunkett, on the other hand, would have to step up after being expensive in the two games he has played so far.

Chattogram Challengers Predicted Playing XI:

Lendl Simmons, Junaid Siddique, Imrul Kayes (C), Chadwick Walton, Ryan Burl, Nurul Hasan (WK), Liam Plunkett, Muktar Ali, Rubel Hossain, Nasum Ahmed, Mehedi Hasan Rana

Chattogram Challengers Actual Playing XI:

M Junaid Siddique, Chadwick Walton, LMP Simmons, Rubel Hossain, Liam Plunkett, Nasum Ahmed, Ryan Burl, Mehedi Hasan Rana, Ziaur Rahman, Nurul Hasan, Pinak Ghosh

Comilla Warriors Preview

As mentioned earlier, Cumilla is heavily reliant on their batting. There was a lot of expectation around Dawid Malan especially after his superlative performances and he has delivered in some style by being the top run-getter until with 303 runs. Malan had a failure against Rajshahi Royals on Saturday but he will definitely be a big fish for Chattogram Challengers.

Key batter Soumya Sarkar will also need to build on his fantastic knock against Rajshahi as Cumilla will miss the services of the prolific Sri Lankan duo of Bhanuka Rajapaksa and Dasun Shanaka. It will be interesting to see whether Stiaan Van Zyl and David Wiese could fill their absence adequately.

Bowling-wise, Cumilla seems to have a good core of Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, and Al-Amin Hossain but the others have been disappointing. While Mujeeb has been exceptional with both his wicket-taking ability and also economy rate during the powerplay overs, even Sarkar and Al-Amin would have to correct their nature of conceding too many runs. Apart from these bowlers, Abu Hider Rony has been a massive appointment as he has been totally off-color. The left-arm seamer has only picked 2 wickets until now while leaking more than 11 runs per over on average.

Comilla Warriors Predicted Playing XI:

Robiul Islam, Stiaan Van Zyl, Dawid Malan (C), Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman, David Wiese, Mahidul Islam Ankon (WK), Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Al-Amin Hossain, Sunzamul Islam, Sumon Khan/Abu Hider Rony

Comilla Warriors Actual Playing XI:

Al-Amin Hossain, Sunzamul Islam, Soumya Sarkar, D Wiese, Sabbir Rahman, Abu Hider, Robiul Islam, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Mahidul Islam Bhuiyan Ankon, Stiaan van Zyl, Dawid Malan

Weather Conditions

At least until now, there have been no signs of the pitches deteriorating and that would come across as good news given that a lot of high-scoring games have been played at the traditionally spin-friendly Dhaka Stadium. The same could be on display for this match between Chattogram and Cumilla too. With respect to the weather, Dhaka, as usual, will have really good overhead conditions for cricket to be played without any interruption. Sunny skies are expected with a maximum temperature of 26°C.

Venue Details

A lot of runs have been scored at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka and the average first innings score of 156 is the best indicator to prove that. Further, the fact that seven out of the eight chasing teams have won so far is also another proof that the tracks at this venue stay the same through the course of the 40 overs.

Toss: To Bowl

There has been nothing to suggest that teams should move away from the default decision of chasing in the T20s. This ongoing edition has witnessed that chasing teams have mostly ended on the positive side and this should continue in the game against Chattogram and Cumilla too.