Chittagong Vikings

Chittagong Vikings is a cricket franchise based on Chittagong that plays in the Bangladesh Premier League. They participated in all the seasons of BPL and yet to make an impact on the league. They changed their names from Chittagong Kings to Chittagong Vikings after a change of ownership in 2015.

Background

Chittagong Vikings contested the first two seasons of the league under the ownership of SQ sports in the name of Chittagong Vikings. Since the SQ sports was accused and charged with fixing and delaying payment for players, they were banned from participating in cricketing activities.

After the scandal of SQ sports, DBL Sports Limited took the ownership of Chittagong Kings and changed their names to Chittagong Vikings in the year 2015.

Players

The inaugural season was led by Mahmudullah with players like Tamim Iqbal, Jason Roy and Brendon Taylor added strength to the team. In the next season, they signed Shaun Tait and Rubel Hossain who added to stabilise the bowling attack. The signing of star players like Chris Gayle, Grant Elliott, Dwayne Smith, Tamim Iqbal and Tymal Mills was a boost to the team in the fourth season.

This season they are battling with the powerful squad with players like Luke Ronchi, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Shahzad and many youngsters. They will try to achieve their dream by this season.

Prominent Achievements

Their greatest achievement was reaching the finals of the league in the second season and they managed to qualify for the playoffs in the fourth season but unfortunately, eliminated in the eliminator.

Chittagong Vikings highest total in the entire five seasons is 211/5 against the Sylhet Sixers which is the fourth highest total of a team with just 6 runs behind of the highest total of 217/4 by Dhaka Dynamites.

The Highest Successful run chase by Chittagong Vikings is chasing 184 runs scored by Comilla Victorians. They chased this humongous total in 19.2 overs scoring 186 and losing just 4 wickets in the year 2016.

They hold the record for the Largest victories by runs. They scored a massive total of 193 runs against Sylhet Royals and defending them in just 75 runs and thus gained a victory of 119 runs in the year 2013.

They also shared a record for the Smallest victories by runs with Barisal Bulls by defending the 181 runs target against Sylhet Super Stars. They defended the opponent in just 1 run in the year 2015.

Club Trajectory

Chittagong Vikings entered the league with the strongest squad with players like Mahmudullah Riyad, Dwayne Bravo, Kevon Cooper and Jason Roy. Despite, having the strong squad, they failed to make an impact in the season. The management was unhappy as the team was disqualified in the knockout match.

In the next season, they retained Mahmudullah and Jason Roy and had some powerful reinforcement like David Miller and Ryan ten Doeschate. With this powerful squad, they won first three games in a row and qualified for the playoffs. They faced defeat in the finals as Dhaka Gladiators defended their championship.

Under the ownership of DBL group, the team had Tamim Iqbal as their icon player and Mohammad Amir to boost their pace attack. Since they showed poor performance with the season especially in their bowling performance. They ended up last in the points table.

In the fourth season, they retained Tamim and had a fierce batting line-up with players like Chris Gayle and Shoaib Malik. They managed to qualify for the playoffs and got eliminated in the eliminator.

In the last season, they didn’t have the strongest squad. The team was led by Misbah-Ul-Haq and Ronchi. The local players had failed to perform to their best. Thus, resulting them in the bottom of the table with only three wins.

Low point

Despite signing the best batting and bowling attack in every season, They failed to achieve their dream of winning the title. The practice of fixing by the club owners made a bad name for the club.

Fan Base

The club had star players like Chris Gayle, David Miller, Jason Roy, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal etc. This resulted in a decent amount of fan base for the club. They have 22.8K Twitter followers and 5.4L of Facebook followers. They showed their loyalty towards the team despite their poor performance in the league.