Fortune Barishal had their last laugh when they celebrated the championship of the 10th edition of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) cricket on Friday after outplaying Comilla Victorians by six wickets.
Comilla Victorians, who had the opportunity to win the BPL title for the fifth time and three times in a row were just outshined by the Fortune Barisha with conceding six wickets defeat.
Fortune Barishal after winning toss diced to bat first keeping domination restricted the four times champions for 154 runs and reached the target losing four wickets with six balls remaining.
Chasing to a moderate target Tamim Iqbal and Mehidy Hassan Miraz in the opening stand piled up a solid foundation of 76 runs by eight overs to set off Fortune Barishal to chase the target beautifully. Tamim, who onset with a devastating mood, scored 39 runs off 26 balls with clubbing three fours and as many sixes before being bowled by Moeen Ali with the scorecard showing 76 for one.
Mehidy Miraz followed him just after six runs when he was also the victim of the English all-rounder Ali for 29 0ff 26 balls and Barishal was downed to 82 for two.
After suffering a substantial wobble, losing two vital wickets in a span of six runs, Kyle Mayers and Mushifiqur Rahim strongly handled the situation when they 73 more runs for victory.
The partnership between Mushfiqur Rahim and Kyle Mayers was broken on 141 runs, just 14 runs away to each the winning target.
After the partnership of Mushfiqu and Kyle Mayers in a short period on 141 and 144 runs, Mahmudullah and David Miller just kept their cool to reach the target scoring 15666 runs and to win the match by six wickets. Comilla Victorians, who had high hopes of mustering a strong
reply to Barishal bowling attack amid good conditions with the pitch appearing to be flattening out, as it is often the case at the Home Cricket, could not make it success, could not make it success.
It didn’t match up as their top-order failed to cope with uneven bounce as the ball raised from turfs, as after losing the first wicket of opener Sunil Narine for five runs and six runs on the board, top orders could not rebuild damage.
The middle order batters of the Victorians also disappoint much when they were leaving the crease in regular intervals.
Due to the predicament, Litton Das, Towhid Hridoy and Johnson Charles had to curb their aggressiveness approach.
One down Towhid Hridoy, who scored 64 runs off 43 balls in the previous match against Rangpur Riders, going to be danger offered catch to Mahmudullah when James Fuller struck first an overpitched delivery outside off stumps. Hridoy slashes and top edged it to the thirdman for 15 of 10 balls with three fours, before being gobbled by Riyad.
Captain Litton, who played a blistering 57 balls 87 runs against Rangpur in the previous encounter, scored just 16 off 12 deliveries until whacking a James Fuller’s short of a length ball outside off stumps. Litton placed the ball in the air straight to third man fielder and this time also Rioyad, who did not have to move for even a step.
After the captain leaving Victorians 42/3, Johnson Charles and Mahidul Islam Ankon tried to repair the damage but they could add only 23 runs at fourth wicket stand.
Charles scored only 15 off 17 balls being caught by Tamim Iqbal off McCoy who had the lone wicket in match but was very much economy with conceding only 24 runs in his four overs spells.
Ankon batted for a long but was slow when he scored team’s highest 38 off 35 balls hitting two fours and as many sixes and Victorians were in deep trouble with losing six wickets for 115 runs.
At this stage, it looked Victorians were going to be bundled out for a paltry total.
But Andre Russel accompanied by Jaker Ali in the eight wicket partnership added 39 runs off 20 balls to make a respectable total of 154 runs.
Andre Russel played a fierce 27 off 14 balls with four towering sixes, in fact the West Indian late order batter steered the Victorians to set a fight score to chase for Barishal.