Riding on his rampant batting display, Fortune Barishal chased down a total of 220 runs in 18.1 overs against Minister Group Rajshahi and won the game by eight wickets. And thus, Najmul Hossain Shanto’s 51-ball century in the first innings went in vain.
Tamim Iqbal, the captain of Fortune Barishal, won the toss and opted to bowl first. Rajshahi celebrated the chance of being sent to bat first amassing 131 runs in the first wicket stand.
Anisul Islam Emon, who came to the limelight for the first time with this event, hit 69 off 39 balls with seven fours and three sixes. After his dismissal, Najmul was aggressive in the middle and continued to smash the balls out of the boundary. Wonderful batting show from these two put Rajshahi on a mountain of 220 runs for seven wickets.
With this ton, Najmul became the only second batsman after Tamim to hit more than one century in T20 cricket. And at the same time, his 11 sixes in a single innings is now the record of hitting most sixes in a single T20 innings as a Bangladeshi batsman. In this record, Najmul is also accompanied by Tamim who also hit 11 sixes in a T20 innings earlier.
In the last over of Rajshahi’s innings, Kamrul Islam Rabbi removed Nurul Hasan Shohan, Najmul and Farhad Reza in three successive deliveries to complete a hattrick. He bagged one more wicket in this over and ended up taking four in the last over.
In reply, Barishal displayed some stroke-full batting riding on the bats of Saif Hassan and Tamim. Saif got dismissed scoring 27 off 15 balls with two fours and two sixes while Barishal captain Tamim smashed 53 off 37 balls with five fours and one six.
Barishal scored 44 runs in the first wicket stand and they’ve got another 117 runs in the second wicket stand comprising Tamim and Parvez. After Tamim was removed by a run-out effort by Najmul and Nurul, Parvez and Afif Hossain paired up to complete the task scoring 60 runs to seal the game.
With hitting the ton off 42 balls, Parvez surpassed Tamim’s record of fastest ton by a Bangladeshi off 50 balls. During the course of the record, Parvez smashed nine fours and seven sixes. He completed the ton hitting Anisul for a four to the cover region.