DHAKA: Dhaka Dynamites made hard work of beating Comilla Victorians by six wickets in the second match of the BPL's opening day. The match was played in the same pitch as the high-scoring Chittagong-Rangpur fixture, but Comilla's batsmen simply imploded in the face of mostly disciplined bowling.
Dhaka took their time finishing the 111-run chase, as they stretched it to the final over, winning with four balls to spare.
Not until the eighth-wicket partnership between Mashrafe Mortaza and Krishmar Santokie did the Comilla innings look to be going anywhere. They lost their top and middle-order in the first 13.3 overs, slipping to 67 for 7. Openers Imrul Kayes and Liton Das were caught at mid-off and mid-on in the first two overs before Shuvagata Hom and Marlon Samuels were undone by good deliveries. The top five didn't get to double-figures.
Darren Stevens' run out in the eighth over made it 36 for 5 and though Ariful Haque and Mahmudul Hasan stemmed the constant flow of wickets, they could only add 23 runs before Ariful was stumped off Mosharraf Hossain, who also took Mahmudul's wicket.
The best bowler on show was the Pakistan legspinner Yasir Shah who, despite going wicketless, played around with the Comilla batsmen with his flight and change of pace. Hasan took three wickets while Mosharraf Hossain picked up two.
Santokie struck three fours in one Mustafizur over before Mashrafe smoked sixes off Farhad Reza and Mustafizur, the second one landing in the second tier over midwicket. He top-scored with 25 but a total of 110 for 8 was never going to be enough to challenge a batting line-up like Dhaka's.
Shamsur Rahman made 19 off 17 balls before giving mid-off a catch off Mashrafe but Nasir Jamshed and Dhaka captain Kumar Sangakkara kept the short chase in control. Sangakkara swung but missed to give Abu Hider his first wicket.
They added 55 runs for the second wicket, before Jamshed fell for a run-a-ball 44 to Sunil Narine.
Source: espncricinfo.com
BDST: 1213 HRS, NOV 23, 2015
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** Comilla Victorians facing Dhaka Dynamites
