Sunil Narine hammered the fastest half-century in the Bangabandhu Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 as Comilla Victorians stormed into the grand finale.
Opposition Chattogram Challengers could hardly stand a chance against Comilla batting on the night and conceded a seven-wicket defeat with 43 balls to spare in the second qualifier at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium Wednesday.
Star all-rounder Shakib al Hasan led Fortune Barishal now stand in the way of Comilla in the finale of the tournament at the same venue Friday.
Chasing 149 runs, Cumilla suffered an early scare losing opener Liton Das for a golden duck in the first ball of the innings to left-arm pacer Shariful Islam.
The loss of wicket however, hardly dented the Victorians as Narine pulled off fireworks in front of the limited crowed allowed into the stadium on the day.
Narine reached 50 runs in just 13 balls with four boundaries and half a dozen over boundaries, the quickest in BPL history.
The previous best belonged to Pakistan batter Ahmed Shehzad – who faced 16 deliveries for Barisal Burners against Duronto Rajshahi in the maiden edition of the competition in 2012.
The world’s quickest half-century in the format belongs to former India batsman Yuvraj Singh – who took just 12 deliveries against England in the T20 World Cup 2007 in Durban.
Left-handed batter Narine perished scoring 57 off 16 deliveries to left-arm fast bowler Mirttunjoy Chowdhury in the sixth over of the chase but the innings had by then surely demolished morale of the youth based Chattogram.
With the Windies cricketer walking back to the dressing room, Comilla needed another 70 runs in 86 deliveries.
There was no looking back for Comilla from here on as overseas batters Moeen Ali and Faf du Plessis scored unbeaten 30 runs each and pulled up an unbroken 54-run stand for the fourth wicket to guide their side home in just 12.5 overs.
Moeen Ali’s 23-ball innings involved two boundaries and one over boundary while Du Plessis struck three boundaries and two over boundaries in his 13-ball knock against the hapless Chattogram bowling attack.
Earlier, the Challengers elected to bat first in the evening game.
The port city outfit were off to a stable start with Will Jacks and Zakir Hasan taking the crease.
Eyes were on English batter Jacks, the highest run scorer of the tournament, who had come back to the XI after missing the previous game due to illness.
The right-handed batsman however, left scoring 16 off nine balls.
Chattogram them lost four quick wickets to spin duo Moeen and Tanvir Islam in Zakir [20], Chadwick Walton [two], Afif Hossain [10] and Shamim Hossain [nought] to reel from 31 for one to 50 for five wickets.
Mehedi Hasan Miraz and Akbar Ali took charge and steadied the ship adding 61 runs off 40 balls for the sixth wicket.
The duo succumbed with Miraz scoring a 38-ball 44 laced with three boundaries and two over boundaries while Akbar scored 33 off 20.
The last four Chattogram batters could add only 18 runs to the tally before the innings got restricted to 148 all-out with five balls to spare.
Comilla right-arm pacer Shahidul Islam and Moeen picked three wickets apiece.
