Former champions Rangpur Riders off to a great start to their Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) campaign as they beat Sylhet Strikers to secure a consecutive second win on Tuesday in Mirpur.
The Riders beat Sylhet by 34-run. A career-best performance by Nahid Rana, who claimed 4 for 27 and two catches, dismantled Sylhet’s batting lineup under the lights at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.
Riders opted to bat first winning the toss. But they failed to impress as their top three batters failed cheaply inside the powerplay. Alex Halex, Steven Taylher and Saif Hassan only made 6, 12 and 4, respectively.
Iftikhar Ahmed came forward to do a recovery act. He anchored with a 47 off 42 balls. Riders captain Nurul Hasan supported him with 41 off 24 balls.
In the fifth wicket stand they added 65 runs that propelled them to a defendable total of 155 runs for 6 wickets.
Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Al Amin Hossain took two wickets for Sylhet. They kept the pressure on, but could not resist a late surge by Mahedi Hasan who scored 16 off 8 balls.
In reply, Sylhet never got into a position to offer some hope to win the match. They were rocked early as Kamrul Islam Rabbi dismissed George Munsey in the second over of the innings.
And then Nahid Rana came in and overshadowed all efforts of Sylhet. He strike twice to remove Zakir Hasan for 18, and Paul Stirling for 6 in the powerplay, and left Sylhet reduced at 43 for three.
Sylhet's middle order needed to accelerate to keep them in the contest. Rony Talukdar fought hard with 41 off 36 balls. But his overly cautious approach stalled the chase of Sylhet. Rony and Jaker Ali put up a partnership of 48 runs, but they consumed too many deliveries making their chase ineffective.
Sylhet’s last chance was shattered by Khusdil Shah who took two wickets for only 10 runs. He removed Rony and captain Ariful Haque in two back-to-back deliveries. And got a great chance for a hattrick, his lbw appeal was denied by the umpires twice against Samiullah Shenwari.
Nahid sealed the deal when he came back for this second spell and removed Jaker and Shinwari. Mohammad Saifuddin also supported him by taking two wickets for 18 runs.
Eventually, Sylhet were wrapped up for 121 for nine wickets as the Riders sealed a comfortable win to get early momentum in the event.