A nightmare of a title defence

Comilla Victorians started the season as defending champions, and their collection of players in and out of the players' draft said a lot about their aspirations in 2016. But they floundered from the start, losing their first five games in a row. With the other teams off to far better starts, there was nowhere to go for Comilla.

One of the main problems was the unpredictability in their playing XI. There were too many changes in the first five games, especially when it came to their overseas choices. It became clear quite early, that Comilla were not sure about their playing XI, and were making guesses.

The dip in form for Imrul Kayes and Liton Das played a major role in their decline while Ashar Zaidi, last year's best player, was not featuring regularly either.

Mashrafe Mortaza seemed exasperated at one stage, but he had to soldier on even with an injured hamstring. The performance of Rashid Khan, Marlon Samuels and Nabil Samad would be their key takeaways from the tournament but they would rue poor selection and fielding.

Comilla managed to win games, but only towards the end of the tournament, and the comfort with which they beat Khulna Titans was a reminder of how well they could have done, had they not started so poorly.

Losing the first five games on the trot left Comilla with very little chance to qualify for the playoffs. It unloaded all their momentum to a point where prestige became the only reason for the owners, management and players to attend the games.

Marlon Samuels was Comilla's best batsman at the end of the season, but it was once again Mashrafe Mortaza who pushed himself hard to ensure wins. He bowled superbly with both new and old ball and even took a shorter run-up, having struggled with a hamstring injury towards the end of the league matches.

Liton Das had another poor BPL campaign, finishing with 64 runs in 11 games. He was shuffled around the batting line-up after he failed to shine as a top-order batsman. His wicketkeeping was not extraordinary, which also did not help his case.

Comilla must learn how to build a squad based on local players, rather than relying too much on foreign recruits. It would be interesting to see if they would continue with head coach Mizanur Rahman Babul next season.