Chittagong enters final after winning a close match, thanks to Alice’s bravery
Chittagong Kings need to score 164 runs to reach the BPL final. Despite a good start against Khulna Tigers, they lost 7 wickets out of 130 runs due to a failure in the middle. 17 overs were over. That is, 34 runs were needed in the last 3 overs, with tail-enders like Arafat Sunny and Alish Al Islam on the wicket.
From there, 13 runs came from Alish’s four and six in the 18th over bowled by Jason Holder. Alish and Alish could not take more than 6 runs in the 19th over bowled by Hasan Mahmud. That is, 15 runs were needed in the last over. This over bowled by Mushfiqur Hasan showed extreme drama. Even though 7 runs came in the first 3 balls, Alish, who had batted well, had to leave the field in pain. Shariful Islam came to the wicket. Although he could not bat and bowl properly, he got a four in the fourth ball. He was out again in the fifth ball. That is, he needed a four in the last ball to win. Alish forgot the pain and went back to the field. He sent the ball outside the boundary with a great shot through the cover area, Mehedi Hasan disappointed the Mirajs and Khulna reached the final.
Chittagong won by 2 wickets. Alice remained unbeaten on 17 runs off 7 balls. On the other side, Sunny remained unbeaten on 18 runs off 13 balls. Alice showed heroism in batting before taking 1 wicket for just 14 runs in 4 overs with the ball. He was definitely the man of the match.
Despite losing the first two wickets for 32 runs in the chase of 164 runs, Chittagong did not have a bad run rate. 46 runs came in 6 overs of the power play. Hussain Talat and opener Khawaja Nafai made a great partnership for the third wicket. They added 70 runs off 48 balls. Just when Chittagong was on the verge of an easy victory with the bat of these two, they lost the ball to Nasum Ahmed-Mushfiqur Hasan.
Chittagong, who lost their third wicket for 105 runs, lost 6 wickets after scoring 117 runs. Talat (40 off 25 balls), Shamim Hossain Patwari, Nafi (57 off 46 balls) and Khaled Ahmed went back one by one. Captain Mohammad Mithun could not stand as a shield for the team either. Mithun returned to the team’s 130 runs with the last ball of the 17th over, putting the team in danger. After that, Alish and Arafat showed their dominance.
Earlier, Khulna, which lost 6 wickets in the stipulated 20 overs, relying on Mahidul Islam Ankan’s responsible 41 runs and Shimron Hetmyer’s 63 runs at a blistering pace, reached 163 runs. Chittagong had to regret batting after winning the toss against Barisal in the first qualifier. Chittagong captain Mohammad Mithun did not think twice about fielding after winning the toss in this match. His team’s bowlers proved the correctness of their decision from the beginning. Chittagong took 2 wickets of Khulna for just 30 runs in the first 6 overs.
Khulna lost 4 wickets after scoring only 46 runs in the first 10 overs. Although Mohammad Naeem Sheikh, the highest run-scorer in the tournament so far, managed to score 19 runs off 22 balls, Mehedi Hasan Miraj, Alex Ross or Afif Hossain returned in single digits. When the team was in danger of being all out for less than 100 runs, Ankan and Hetmyer put up a strong resistance for the fifth wicket. Although they started slowly at the beginning, these two gradually increased the pace of runs.
Khulna, who scored 46 runs in the first 10 overs, scored 117 runs in the last 10 overs. At the end of 16 overs, Khulna was 92 runs. That is, Khulna scored 71 runs in the last 4 overs. Ankan-Hetmyer combined to score 23 runs in the 17th over bowled by Khaled Ahmed. Hetmyer showed more destructive form in the 19th over. Hetmyer, who had conceded only 6 runs in the previous three overs, took the runs from this over by Binura Fernando with two fours and two sixes. Shariful’s last over came with 17 runs. Khulna got a fighting capital of 163 runs.
Ankan scored 41 runs off 32 balls with 1 four and 3 sixes. Hetmyer, who played 33 balls, hit 6 fours and 4 sixes on his way to scoring 63 runs. Jason Holder played a cameo of 12 runs off 5 balls.
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