Rajshahi Kings a registered a vital 33-run win against Chittagong Vikings Wednesday at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Cricket Stadium to keep alive their hope of progressing to the BPL 2017 playoffs.
Rajshahi now have eight points from 10 matches and need to win their remaining two matches if they are to have any chance of qualifying for the top four in the points table.
Chasing 158, Chittagong lost in-form opener Luke Ronchi in the very first over. The Vikings lost regular wickets in the middle part of their innings and were eventually all out for 124 in 19.2 overs.
Despite the comfortable victory, Rajshahi received a major scare when their wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim suffered injury while diving for a wide delivery from Pakistan’s Mohammad Sami. He later exited the field. Youngster Zakir Hasan kept wickets for Rajshahi in the remainder of the tie.South Africa’s Stiaan van Zyl top-scored with 27 from 29 balls while No 3 batsman Anamul Haque made 23 off 20 deliveries. The out-of-form Soumya Sarkar yet again disappointed the home fans as the left-hander scored 13 off 15 balls before being dismissed by the Kings’ pacer Mustafizur Rahman.
Mustafizur picked up two wickets conceding just 18 runs from his quota of four overs. But the best bowler for Rajshahi was youngster Qazi Onik, who took four wickets giving away only 17 runs in his 3.2 overs.
Earlier, Rajshahi captain Darren Sammy elected to bat. Rajshahi made two changes to their playing XI, including the uncapped Pakistan leg-spinner Usama Mir, their first draft pick, and Onik, the Bangladesh U-19 fast bowler in place of the West Indies’ Kesrick Williams and batsman Rony Talukdar respectively.
The start however, was not god for the Kings as they lost the wicket of opener Mominul Haque (seven off nine balls) in the last ball of the second over.Zakir, England’s Luke Wright and Mushfiq were not able to score big as Rajshahi were reduced to 86 for the loss of four wickets inside the 12th over.
Then Sammy and all-rounder James Franklin formed a 69-run partnership for the fifth wicket to help the Kings get past the 150-mark. Eventually they managed 157 losing six wickets in their stipulated 20 overs.
Sammy scored the highest 40 off 25 balls with two fours and three sixes. Franklin made a run a ball 30 with two boundaries.
England’s Luis Reece was the best bowler for Chittagong as the left-arm medium-pacer bagged three wickets for 33 runs.Chittagong remain at the bottom of the points table with five points as they tasted their seventh loss of the campaign.BRIEF SCOREChittagong Vikings 124 in 19.2 overs (Onik 4/17, Mustafizur 2/18) lost to Rajshahi Kings 157/6 (Sammy 40, Reece 3/33)WHAT THEY SAIDQazi Onik, Rajshahi Kings bowlerThis is my first match for Rajshahi. Since I joined the Kings, I always targeted suck kind of good start, like [Wednesday]. My plan was to concede less runs. Getting wicket often needs luck. I am feeling happy that the plan was successful. I was a bit nervous at the beginning as I was playing in front of a big crowd and the whole world was watching. But later, I calmed myself down. The win was crucial for us. Such wins can motivate any team. We are still not sure whether we will qualify or not. But anyways, we have to play well and win the rest of the matches. We are focused on our next match.Luke Ronchi, Chittagong Vikings captainIt was just rubbish batting from us, pretty much. We did bowl brilliantly. They were 30 runs short of where they wanted to be on that wicket. They bowled well but we just batted terribly, plain and simple. We've had some tight games but we shouldn't be losing by 30-odd runs on that wicket chasing 150 or whatever it was. It was just rubbish batting by all of us. Everyone just needs to have a good look at themselves and realise what they are doing wrong and where they need to improve. Everyone's just lost for ideas because it hasn't worked through the whole tournament and [Wednesday] topped it off because with the bat we were terrible.
Thursday, June 04, 2026
