Rangpur boost playoff hopes

Rangpur Riders walked their way into a comfortable five-wicket victory over Dhaka Dominators in the ongoing ninth edition of the Bangladesh Premier League to boost their hopes of reaching the playoffs.

Rangpur currently sit fourth in the points table with 10 points in their bag, six more than Khulna Tigers at fifth place.

Dhaka, on the other hand, are virtually knocked out of the tournament as they only have four points from nine matches and will have to win all their remaining matches and hope for Rangpur or Comilla Victorians to lose all of theirs to qualify.

In Sylhet on Monday, Dhaka failed to put up a competitive total as none of their batters except for Usman Ghani managed a decent score, leading to them only scoring 144-5, a total that Rangpur chased down with ease courtesy of a brilliant 72 off 43 balls from Shak Mahedi Hasan, the player of the match.

Expectedly, Dhaka skipper Nasir Hossain was disappointed with the total after the match.

“The surface was good for batting and 180-190 would have been a good score. We didn’t get partnerships at the top of the order and hence ended with a below-par 144. The bowlers tried their best but the wicket was conducive for batting,” he said in the post-match presentation.

Rangpur skipper Nurul Hasan Sohan praised Mahedi and the bowlers but added they needed fixing in some places.

“The bowlers bowled well and Mahedi played well at the top, so it was a good game for us. We are playing as a team in the last 4-5 games and that’s why we have the momentum. We have four matches before the qualifiers and we will try to iron out some of the issues before that,” he said.

Batting first, Dhaka lost three wickets within the powerplay as Rangpur pacer Azmatullah Omarzai struck twice to get rid of Mizanur Rahman (5) and Soumya Sarkar (11) before Mahedi got Alex Blake (4).

After a brief 31-run stand with Usman, who top-scored with 73 off 55 balls for Dhaka, Mohammad Mithun (14) was also back in the pavilion as Rakibul Hasan got the better of him.

Skipper Nasir (29) then put up a 55-run stand with Usman but they could never properly accelerate, meaning Dhaka were stuck with a subpar total of 144.

In reply, Rangpur stumbled early as Salman Irshad got Mohammad Naim (0). But in came Mahedi and put together a 63-run stand with Rony Talukder (29) off just 42 balls to ensure that they had the platform to chase down the Dhaka total easily.

When Rangpur lost Rony, Shoaib Malik (6), and Nurul (6) within five overs, it suggested that Dhaka might be coming back but Mahedi’s 28-run partnership off 20 balls with Mohammad Nawaz took them to touching distance.

Mahedi was trapped LBW for a fine 72 off 43 balls by Al-Amin Hossain in the 17th over, but by then the job was done as Nawaz and Omarzai took the Riders home with an over to spare.