The fastest half century in the history of BPL and on the soil of Bangladesh. The highest strike rate in the BPL innings of at least 50 runs. The Chittagong Challengers flew to Comilla Victorians in the wake of Sunil Narine’s attack in Mirpur. In the second qualifier, Chittagong’s 148 runs surpassed Comilla with 44 balls and 6 wickets left. The team that lost in the first qualifier got the victory in Daputa, the final match was also confirmed.
Narine hit a half-century off just 13 balls to open the innings. In the end he made 56 runs from 16 balls. Batting at 358.25 strike rate, he hit 5 sixes with 6 sixes. After Narine, Faf du Plessis and Moin Ali also took the storm. Du Plessis was unbeaten in the end with 30 off 13 balls, while Moin made 30 off 23 balls.
But the beginning of bowling in Chittagong was great hope. Liton Das caught Shariful Islam’s extra bounce in the first ball and Akbar Ali took it with a dive in front. However, the storm that started with Narine hitting six off the third ball of the over did not stop till he got out. Shariful hit 2 more fours in the first over.
In the next over, Mehdi Hasan Miraj seemed helpless in Narine’s cannon. After striking, Narine hit 1 four with 3 sixes off 4 balls. All with long-off and cover area. Comilla made 43 runs in the first 2 overs of Narine storm, which is the highest in the BPL with the first 12 balls.
Despite not getting a strike in the next two overs, Narine hit four and six off the first two balls to Afif after getting a strike in the fifth over. He got a half-century by hitting Mrityunjay Chowdhury six in the first ball of the last over of the power play. After hitting one ball after another four, however, the left-hander picked up the catch and returned. His partnership with Imrul made 69 off 33 balls.
However, in the powerplay, Comilla made the highest score of 74 in BPL. Imrul Kayes returned with 22 off 24 balls by Benny Howell but Moin and Du Plessis put Comilla ahead. The pair made 54 runs off 26 balls. Comilla won in 12.5 overs.
Chittagong, which had won the toss and elected to bat earlier, has changed the color of the innings several times. Will Jacques started the storm back in the XI, but he made a catch off Shahidul Islam off 18 balls. Chadwick Walton, the highest scorer of the previous match, then became lbw with the ball of Tanvir Islam. Chittagong went into full backfoot after Moin came as the sixth bowler of Comilla in the sixth over. Moin returned Zakir Hasan and Shamim Hossain with two balls in a row in that over and did not give any run in the over.
In the next over of Moin, Chittagong captain Afif went foolish in turn and bounce, Tanvir took a great catch by diving in front from short extra cover. After losing 5 wickets for 50 runs, Chittagong was then pulled by two former captains of Bangladesh U-19 team Miraj and Akbar Ali. He made 61 off 40 balls for the sixth wicket. Akbar changed gears in Chittagong’s innings after attacking Moin in the 12th over, he scored 18 runs in that over.
After scoring 33 off 20 balls, Akbar picked up a catch off Abu Haider. After that, Howell got run out due to misunderstanding while going to take a run in Misfield with Miraj, as a result Chittagong could not increase the speed of run in that way in the end. Miraj also had to stop with 44 off 36 balls, returning with a catch off Shahidul. In the end, Mrityunjay’s 9-ball 15-run cameo helped Chittagong reach 146 runs. Although there were 5 balls left in the innings.
However, there was supposed to be pressure on Comilla to call it a knockout match. In the previous match, they chased down 143 runs against Barisal and stopped at 133 runs, which must have given hope to Chittagong.
Sunil Narain sprinkled sand on the dust of hope!