Afridi was sold to the Dhaka franchise for $700,000 after some intense bidding involving five of the six franchises for the Feb. 10-28 tournament, which is based on the successful Indian Premier League model.

The all-rounder, however, will only be available for the final two days of the opening BPL campaign as he is on national team duty against England in the United Arab Emirates.

Tournament organisers said the money would be given to the players proportionately for the matches they are available.

Quick-scoring West Indian batsman Chris Gayle, who is available from Feb. 14, was another to attract attention with Barisal paying $551,000 for him.

His compatriots Marlon Samuels and Kieron Pollard also created a stir as they were sold for $360,000 and $300,000 to Rajshahi and Dhaka franchises respectively.

A total of 111 overseas players and 80 local cricketers were put on auction with teams given a maximum budget of $2million and able to buy no more than eight overseas players.

Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik (Chittagong $150,000) West Indies’ Dwayne Bravo (Chittagong $150,000), Australia’s Brad Hodge (Barisal $140,000), Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya (Rajshahi $110,000) and Muttiah Muralitharan (Chittagong $100,000) were among others to go for big money.

No Indian players were included in the auction.

Along with Panesar and Gibbs, New Zealand’s Scott Styris and Lou Vincent failed to attract a buyer.

Ireland’s wicketkeeper-batsman Niall O’Brien was the most expensive player from the associate nations with Khulna paying $80,000 for the batsman.

Bangladesh internationals Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Ashraful, Shahriar Nafees and Alok Kapali had been selected as icon players for six franchises and were excluded from auction.

All-rounder Nasir Hossain was the most-sought-after Bangladeshi in the auction with Khulna sealing his signature for $200,000.

India-based Game On Sports Management will run the tournament after winning the bid from the Bangladesh Cricket Board for six years for $44.33

The home side, despite changing the squad five times in as many matches and using a whopping 30 cricketers, prevailed 3-2 after winning two matches in Chittagong and the crucial fourth one-dayer by six wickets.

During the final game, the home side however suffered an early morning collapse which could have triggered a below-100 score but thanks to a staunch rearguard action from the tail, chiefly Noor Hossain, the match petered into a respectable affair.

Batting first after being put in, the A team’s top-order were blown to bits by Jack Brooks, the Northamptonshire paceman. The 27-year-old took care of the top three — Imrul Kayes, Nasiruddin Faruque and Junaed Siddiqui — by the eighth over of the innings. Soon, the score slipped to 75 for seven before Noor, who made 38 off 28 balls with three boundaries and a couple of sixes, added 55 for the eighth wicket with Forhad Reza, who contributed with 23 runs.

Apart from Brooks’s three, left-arm spinner Simon Kerrigan and part-timer Joe Root picked up two each.

Forhad then picked up Root for a duck but there wasn’t a similar collapse by the visitors who had skipper James Taylor to thank. The diminutive right-hander struck four boundaries in his stabilising unbeaten 65 off 110 balls. He added 68 for the fourth wicket with Jonny Bairstow before completing the chase through a 30-run stand with Jos Buttler who struck a couple of sixes and a boundary in his 21-ball 27.

For the home side, Forhad, Mosharraf Hossain, Sohag Gazi and Noor Hossain took one each.

The first Twenty20 between the two sides will be held on January 22 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka.

SCORES IN BRIEF
BANGLADESH A: 152 all out in 44.1 overs (Noor 38, Forhad 23, Naeem 16; Brooks 3-35, Kerrigen 2-45, Root 2-10).

ENGLAND LIONS: 158-4 in 37.5 overs (Taylor 65 not out, Bairstow 33, Buttler 27 not out; Forhad 1-4, Mosharraf 1-26, Sohag 1-33, Noor 1-39).

Result: England Lions won by six wickets; Bangladesh A win 5-match series 3-2.

Mushfiqur was so assured with the last shot that he didn’t wait for the ball to sail into the gallery; he immediately raised his bat to the sky and was soon engulfed by his teammates, who sprinted on to the pitch to celebrate the moment along with the eruption of joy from the crowd.

In the record books, yesterday Bangladesh won a T20 International against West Indies by three wickets — their second success against the Caribbean side in the shortest version of the game and Mushfiqur played a match-winning unbeaten knock of 41 to chase down the tourists’ total of 132 with one ball in hand. But there were much bigger things than mere statistics, especially for Mushfiqur who began his journey as a captain in such a dramatic and fantastic way, that one can only call it the stuff of dreams.

Nothing could have been better for Mushfiqur after the way he led the team from the front in his first assignment as captain and the beauty of the match was the way it was finished by the little man. The lone T20 match of the series was full of drama, making it worth the while for fans who paid to watch, and in the end it was the new Bangladesh skipper who hogged the limelight after almost single-handedly delivering the victory with a well-calculated and perfectly-paced innings. It was only Bangladesh’s fourth success in 17 tries in cricket’s newest format.

In this match, Bangladesh’s bowlers were excellent in restricting the West Indies. The fielding was stupendous, fitting in well with the coach Stuart Law’s mantra of “smart” cricket. For West Indies, Marlon Samuels carried his form from the practice matches with a brisk fifty but the fans will definitely remember this match for Mushfiqur’s final act.

Requiring six runs from the last six balls, the captain himself was on strike but the tension was mounting among the fans when he failed to get a run from Ravi Rampaul’s first ball. Off the next he managed a single only to see Nasir Hossain, who brilliantly assisted his skipper before his moment of madness, losing his temper to offer a simple catch to the wicketkeeper. Thanks to Abdur Razzak, who managed a single off the first ball he faced, the strike was back with Mushfiqur leaving four runs to be score from the last two balls.

Mushfiqur though didn’t wait for the last ball and scripted the historic win in dramatic fashion.

But before that he showed his character when the Bangladesh middle-order began to undo their brilliant bowling and a promising start to the chase and he had Nasir, who added a valuable 18 runs off 15 balls with one boundary, beside him to take the match into the final touch by sharing 35 runs for the seventh wicket.

Mushfiqur stayed firm until the end. He didn’t lose his cool even though the asking rate was increasing. Bangladesh needed 43 from the last five overs with five wickets in hand and at one stage they required 20 runs from the last two overs and West Indies skipper Darren Sammy could be seen smiling on the field, but Mushfiqur and Nasir turned the tables, taking 14 runs from the penultimate over of pacer Carlos Brathwaite.

The fans were on their toes in the last over and Mushfiqur gave them reason to smile and compensated for the recent disastrous tour of Zimbabwe and the shameful batting debacle (58 runs all out) against the same opponents at the same venue in the ICC World Cup.

SCORES IN BRIEF

WEST INDIES: 132 for 8 (Simmons 23, Barath 15, Samuels 58, Russell 5, Bravo 7, Ramdin 10 not out; Razzak 2-27, Shafiul 2-19, Shakib 2-25)

BANGLADESH: 135 for 7 (Tamim 11, Imrul 22, Ashraful 24, Mushfiqur 41 not out; Naeem 10, Nasir 18; Rampaul 2-28, Samuels 2-14)

Result: Bangladesh won by three wickets.

Man-of-the-match: Mushfiqur Rahim.

The Harare Sports Club erupted at that moment as the home team clinched the third one-dayer by five runs after the Tigers were stopped at 245 from 49.2 overs after Zimbabwe had made 250-7.

But it was Mushfiqur’s brilliantly choreographed 101 off 100 balls that almost took the Tigers home from several positions of distress.

He kept the chase going, despite the loss of partners at regular intervals, through a boundary here, a two there. But the wickets that hurt Bangladesh most were the likes of Shuvogoto Hom Chowdhury, Mahmudullah Riyad and later the two tail-enders near the end of an exciting chase.

The crucial stand was the 44 added by Mushfiqur and Riyad, but the latter’s unnecessary bunt down the ground found Hamilton Masakadza at long-on.

The fifth wicket partnership, too, between Mushfiqur and Shuvogoto had somehow recovered the lost cause after Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal fell, but with the required run-rate going past eight an over, something had to snap, and it came through Shuvogoto’s senseless dash down the wicket to end the 61-run stand of which 32 came off his bat.

But it was the two earlier wickets that slowed the Tigers down.

Tamim’s run-out was bizarre, to say the least. While turning for the second, he appeared to have dropped the bat mid-crease before trying a dive arms first. But the left-hander was a foot short, dismissed after a circumspect 44 off 62 balls with just two boundaries.

Shakib, the last resort after Tamim fell to make it 91 for three, started emphatically with a huge six off Elton Chigumbura, but it was short-lived as he too gave Prosper Utseya a return catch, out for 19 off 22 balls.

The other batsmen, however, hardly delivered.

Regardless of the first steady start in the series, Imrul Kayes’s horror tour continued. The left-hander’s contribution to the opening 50-run stand was only 16 before his second thrust of the pad was adjudged out off Utseya. Junaed Siddiqui, in place of Shahriar Nafees, pushed around for 19 balls before offering a simple catch to Utseya.

Earlier, the 142-run third wicket stand between Tatenda Taibu and Hamilton Masakadza gave much-needed solidity to the Zimbabwe innings after Brendan Taylor completed a hattrick of failures and Vusi Sibanda played one shot too many.

The right-handed opener hammered some splendid boundaries during his 27 before he fell to a skier at cover while trying to pull Rubel Hossain to make it 39 for two.

From there the experienced duo took it slow at first, the pugnacious wicketkeeper and the robust mainstay of Zimbabwe’s batting gathering pace as the stand went along. Taibu made use of three lives, the first of which was in Nasir Hossain’s second over when he bowled medium-pace. Shakib’s decision looked ridiculous but for the split second Taibu’s chipped drive went Shuvogoto’s way, it looked like a stroke of brilliance. But the boy from Mymensingh dropped the sitter and a while later Nasir spilled one, when the batsman was on 41, which would have looked great had he pulled it off at short mid-wicket. Mushfiqur too dropped one at the same score.

Taibu, who made 83 off 103 balls, eventually fell to a fine low catch by Rubel Hossain, who along with Shafiul Islam, bowled very well in the batting Powerplay.

Masakadza made 74 with the help of four boundaries and two beautiful sixes while Chigumbura, who was dropped by substitute Sohrawardi Shuvo at deep square-leg on six, hammered Shakib for two sixes in an over on his way to a 21-ball 31.

Shakib and Rubel took two wickets each while Nazmul Hossain, Shafiul and Riyad took one apiece.

SCORES IN BRIEF
ZIMBABWE: 250 for 7 (Sibanda 27, Masakadza 74, Taibu 83, Ervine 18, Chigumbura 31; Rubel 2-41, Shakib 2-46)

BANGLADESH: 245 (Tamim 44, Imrul 16, Mushfiqur 101, Shakib 19, Shuvagoto 22; Jarvis 2-52, Mpofu 2-43, Utseya 3-47)

Result: Zimbabwe won by five runs.

Man-of-the-match: Mushfiqur Rahim.

The 130-run defeat at the hands of Zimbabwe in the one-off Test ranks among the poorest days in Bangladesh cricket, if not the most disappointing as far as captain Shakib Al Hasan was concerned.

Being 244 all out in the second innings off 57.3 overs, in pursuit of 374 runs in four sessions, was poor on all counts: the surrender when a chase was definitely on, batting the fewest number of overs in the game when patience was most required, the lack of a Plan B (the non-existence of a proper Plan A for that matter) and the lack of commitment.

These missing ingredients make the country’s cricket poorer and the national cricket team an object of ridicule.

With 263 more runs required for an improbably victory since only seven wickets remained on the fifth and final day, a fight beckoned. But the fight, something that the Tigers were seen involved in only on a few occasions this year, went missing.

On the flipside, the home team gave the best example of preparation, togetherness, discipline and most importantly heart. Brendan Taylor’s men wanted to win and they did, the captain picking up the man-of-the-match trophy for his match-winning second innings century.

The Tigers were off to an aggressive start yesterday but Mohammad Ashraful was the first to go. He inside edged a Brian Vitori delivery on to his stumps, leaving for 39 off 51 balls.

Mahmudullah Riyad came in to bat, for the first time in his short Test career at No 6, and immediately the Tigers’ mindset became dubious. It was as much a defensive move as it stacked the odds against Shakib Al Hasan, opting to bat at seven for the fourth time since he became captain.

Riyad, wafting at a number of deliveries without moving his feet much, perished in said fashion to Chris Mpofu. It became 167 for five and a Test win was out of the window.

With a bigger tail to bat with and as the last recognised pair, Shakib’s intent was clearer than the Harare sky. He went for broke and off Elton Chigumbura, he smashed one boundary that kissed the finger-tips of mid-off fieldsman Kyle Jarvis and then swished at one that he hoped to send out of the ground.

Next ball, his waft found the edge and went straight to his opposite number at second slip.

Mushfiqur Rahim, flicking one down square-leg’s throat, went at the same score 174 for seven and it was all over for Bangladesh.

Abdur Razzak blasted five boundaries and three sixes, in the space of two overs, to ensure that someone would remember he played in this Test but apart from his 17-ball 43, nothing was good about the Tigers.

After the lunch break, Jarvis cleaned up the rest with his third and fourth wicket to cap off a remarkable debut after his bad luck in the first innings.

SCORES IN BRIEF
ZIMBABWE: First innings 370

BANGLADESH: First innings 287

ZIMBABWE: Second innings 291 for 5 decl.

BANGLADESH: Second innings 244 (Imrul 31, Tamim 43, Ashraful 39, Mushfiqur 28, Razzak 43, Robiul 12; Jarvis 14-61, Chigumbura 2-50, Mpofu 3-51)

Result: Zimbabwe won by 130 runs.

Man-of-the-match: Brendan Taylor.