Khulna Titans spinner Taijul Islam (C) celebrates one of his three wickets against Rajshahi Kings during their Bangladesh Premier League Twenty20 match against Rajshahi Kings at the Sylhet International Stadium on Tuesday. — New Age photo
Taijul Islam and Mahmudullah shared five wickets between them as Khulna Titans defeated Rajshahi Kings by 25 runs to end their losing run in the Bangladesh Premier League in Sylhet on Tuesday.
Titans owed their first win in the tournament after four consecutive losses to their bowlers as they successfully defended a total of 128-9 by bowling out Rajshahi for 103 runs on a slow wicket at the Sylhet International Stadium.
Spin duo Taijul and Mahmudullah kept it extremely tight, picking up 3-10 and 2-12 respectively before Junaid Khan claimed 3-26 to fold hopeless Rajshahi in 19.5 overs.
Skipper Mehedi Hasan provided an early sparkle, just like he did in few other matches of the tournament, as he struck 23 off 16 balls with a four and six but no other Rajshahi batsman was up to the task.
Dutch-batsman Ryan ten Doeschate (13) and South African Christiaan Jonker (15) were only two among the regular batsmen to reach double figure.
Arafat Sunny and Kamrul Islam, who mainly played as bowlers, put 29 runs for the ninth wicket to lift the side from 74-8 but they could only reduce the margin of defeat.
Khulna’s West Indian all-rounder Carlos Brathwaite, who failed to live up to the expectations so far in the tournament, finally made his mark but only as a fielder as he grabbed four catches in Rajshahi innings.
Brathwaite equalled the record of Sabbir Rahman, Cameron Delport and Adam Lyt, who also claimed four catches in a BPL match – all in 2017 edition – as an outfield fielder.
‘Losing four matches, there was pressure. Good that, we won today, feels good,’ said Khulna skipper Mahmudullah.
Rajshahi captain Mehedi refused to blame the wicket for their disappointing loss.
‘The wicket was pretty good, a bit slow. The spinners bowled well. We lost it in the powerplay,’ he said, referring to their batting in the first six overs where they were reduced to 33-4.
Opting to bat first, Khulna earlier hardly did any better than Rajshahi as they also put an awkward batting display to get restricted to a below-par total and were staring at a possible fifth successive defeat.
Jahurul Islam (13), Junaed Siddique (14) and David Malan (15) all got starts but none could make it a big innings while Mahmudullah and Nazmul Hossain also demonstrated a failure by getting dismissed for nine and 10 runs respectively.
Ariful Haque made 26 off 27 balls with a four while David Wiese added 12 runs to give their innings some respectability.
Isuru Udana, Mehedi and Arafat each claimed two wickets for Rajshahi.
Mustafizur Rahman, who won the previous game for them with a dramatic final over against Rangpur Riders, had to remain content with one wicket, conceding 21 runs in his four overs.
Taijul was named man-of-the-match for his outstanding bowling.
Source: New Age.
