Sylhet Super Stars are yet to open their account as they suffered a comprehensive -run defeat against Dhaka Dynamites in the third edition of the Bangladesh Premier League at Mirpur’s Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.
Kumar Sangakkara smashed a brilliant half-century to lead Dhaka to a more-than-challenging 166/6 while Sylhet ended their chase on -.
Sylhet, in pursuit of 167, never looked like overhauling Dhaka’s tally as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Nurul Hasan was the highest scorer with – runs while skipper Mushfiqur Rahim added 23. Left-arm spinner Mosharraf Hossain was the pick of the Dhaka bowlers with figures of 3/15.
Earlier, the Lankan legend played some glorious strokes all over the ground on way to scoring 75 from just 56 balls – the highest individual score of the tournament so far.
The 38-year old batted with great authority on a rather bowling-friendly pitch and the undoubted highlight of Dhaka’s innings was the second over in which the southpaw smashed 23 runs off West Indian fast bowler Fidel Edwards.
Dhaka’s start however, was anything but pleasant as Saykat Ali (nought) and player of the match of the previous match, Shadman Islam (15), departed in quick succession.
But, icon cricketer Nasir Hossain gave Sangakkara good support, scoring 33 runs off 29 balls with the help of three sixes. The third-wicket pair added 66 runs to help Dhaka post a challenging total.
Right-arm paceman Mohammad Shahid took two wickets for Sylhet.
After the game, Dhaka’s icon cricketer Nasir Hossain said, “The wicket was a bit difficult for the batsmen to go and charge imminently and we planned to score around 140-odd runs which I think is a good total.
When me and Sangakkara were batting we said to ourselves that we need to score at least six runs per over before we start to launch at the end and luckily it paid off for us [yesterday].
I am happy with my batting as I did not get enough opportunities to bat in the previous two matches and I think we are now in a much better shape as a unit as well.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
