Home ›› 13 Feb 2023 ›› Sport
Despite winning five of their first six matches and staying in the top two positions for quite some time in the league stage, it was a misfortunate end of the road for Fortune Barishal as they gambled too much in their eliminator against Rangpur Riders but found no jackpot.
Batting first, Barishal sent Mehidy Hasan Miraz to open with their newest signing Andre Fletcher with the latter failing but the Bangladeshi all-rounder doing his job perfectly, scoring 69 off 48 balls, his first fifty of this BPL, hitting nine fours and a six.
Barishal’s first gamble was to send Mahmudullah Riyad, who had been struggling for runs in this tournament, at three but it paid off as he put together 69 runs off just 46 balls with Mehidy, and scored 34 off 21 balls in the process.
From there on, none of Barishal’s, especially their skipper Shakib Al Hasan’s, shots came off as they sent in Karim Janat and Bhanuka Rajapakse ahead of the Barishal captain, who has been in sublime form this season, scoring 375 runs in 11 innings with an average of 41.16 and a strike rate of 174.41.
Shakib has batted at four seven times this season, at three thrice, and once at five but on Sunday, he opted to go at six or later, which did not pay dividends as the Janat-Rajapaksa duo could only manage 44 runs in the last five overs, meaning Barishal had a subpar total on a pitch that looked ideal for batting.
That ultimately ended up being the deciding factor in the match as Rangpur had a hard time but eventually won with four wickets and three balls in hand, and put to question whether Barishal could have won it with Shakib batting ahead and giving them the required thrust at the end.
“After getting such a good platform, he (Shakib) was thinking that about Janat or Rajapaksa playing freely, if they could score quickly, it would have helped the team. Then he would apply the finishing touch.
“But that plan did not work. Whether it was for the wicket or good bowling or their intent. That is where we lagged behind. We had the platform to score more than 190,” Barishal head coach Nazmul Abedeen Fahim tried to explain his captain’s decisions.
Fahim accepted that it was a gamble and that this was a lesson for them.
