Comilla win four in a row
Publish : 18 Nov 2017, 22:22
Comilla Victorians defeated Rangpur Riders by 14 runs to post their fourth straight win in BPL 2017 at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka Saturday.
Chasing a decent target of 154, Rangpur’s innings were restricted to 139 for the loss of seven wickets in their allotted 20 overs. Rangpur disappointed the Mirpur crowd despite having big hitters like New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum, the West Indies’ Chris Gayle and Sri Lanka’s Thisara Perera and Kusal Perera, among others.
A lot was expected from the explosive opening pair of Gayle and McCullum but young Comilla spinner Mahedi Hasan bowled a brilliant spell in the first three overs, conceding only two runs in 12 deliveries against the dynamic duo.
The leg-spinner dealt a double blow for Rangpur in the fifth over as he removed the dangerous Gayle (17 off 13 balls) and Kusal (nought). Gayle hit three boundaries in his innings but was unable to play a long innings, despite getting as easy life from wicket-keeper Liton Kumar Das and surviving a close lbw call against Mahedi.
Mahedi finally got his reward after heaping constant pressure from one end as he took the important wicket of McCullum in the sixth over.
England’s Ravi Bopara was the highest scorer for Rangpur with his run-a-ball 48 but his knock proved to be too slow in the context of their chase.
Earlier, Rangpur captain Mashrafe bin Mortaza won the toss and elected to field.
Chittagong captain Tamim Iqbal scored 21 off 19 balls before being caught by McCullum off the bowling of seamer Rubel Hossain.
Later No 3 batsman Imrul Kayes played a good innings of 47 off 32 balls with four fours and two sixes. The West Indies’ Marlon Samuels also played a sensible knock of 41 off 34 deliveries as Comilla eventually registered 153 losing six wickets in their stipulated 20 overs.
With this win, Comilla rose to second in the points table with eight points from five matches. Dhaka Dynamites are leading the table with nine points from six games.BRIEF SCORERangpur Riders 139/7 (Bopara 48*, Mithun 31) lost to Comilla Victorians 153/6 (Kayes 47, Samuels 41) by 14 runs WHAT THEY SAIDMashrafe bin Mortaza, Rangpur Riders captainThe team batting second are getting assistance here in the past few weeks. That’s why we chose to field despite winning the toss. It’s really difficult when you lose four wickets within just nine balls. Exactly that happened with us. Even we lost those wickets in powerplay overs. After that [Mohammad] Mithun and [Ravi] Bopara tried to rebuild the innings. We had a difference of 30 runs compared to the balls left. But Comilla [Victorians] bowlers Saifuddin and Al Amin [Hossain] bowled well at the death and we could not chase down the target.Mahedi Hasan, Comilla Victorians spinnerI just tried to bowl in good areas against Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum. And I succeeded against them. I knew that I will open the bowling. So I watched youtube videos of these two and found that they have very less weak points. But in the end I managed to bowl in good areas and was able to check the runs. It was nice to get the wicket of McCullum, but if I had gotten the wicket of Gayle as well it would have been a much more memorable thing for me.