ULAB fall short against Loughborough

University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh tasted their first defeat in two matches in the ongoing Red Bull Campus Cricket 2016 at Nondescript Cricket Club Ground on Tuesday. ULAB lost to London-based Loughborough University, England by 25 runs. ULAB won the toss and invited Loughborough in to bat first. Riding on opening batsman Michael Burgess’ 32-ball 40 and decent contributions by the others, the English university posted 169 runs losing eight wickets in 20 overs. Arifur Rahman led the ULAB attack with three wickets conceding 19 runs in four overs. Mohammad Islam bagged two wickets while Merah Nilor and Mahbubur Rahman picked up a wicket apiece. Chasing the target, ULAB started smoothly with the opening pair posting 35 runs. Almost all the batsmen got starts but fell short having been unable to meet the required run rate. Following 20 overs, ULAB ended up scoring 144 runs on the board losing six wickets. Avishek Mitra made 38 off 33, followed by opener SM Intesar with 30 runs. Samuel Grant and George McKinley picked up two wickets each for Loughborough. ULAB in their third game of the tournament will take on AssupolTuks Cricket, University of Pretoria at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground on Wednesday. ULAB will be looking to bounce back against the South African university, who have won two matches in as many attempts. A total of eight cricketing nations will battle for the world championship. The semi-finals and final of the tournament will be played at Galle International Stadium.BRIEF SCORELoughborough 169/8 in 20 overs (Michael 40, Arifur 3/19, Islam 2/31) beat ULAB 144/6 in 20 overs (Mitra 38, Intesar 30, Grant 2/15, McKinley 2/29) by 25 runs