¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·

Captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz helped Khulna Tigers to secure playoffs of the ongoing BPL, beating Dhaka Capitals by six wickets in their must-win game at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Saturday.

Despite having a good start, Dhaka stumbled to 123-9 in allotted overs. Khulna chased that down in 16.5 overs, thanks to Mehidy’s 55-ball unbeaten 74-run innings.

Khulna’s win also confirmed the elimination of Durbar Rajshahi as both teams finished the group stage with 12 points, but Khulna held a better net run rate than Rajshahi (-1.030).

Opting to bat first, opener Tanzid Hasan smashed three sixes in the first over off Nasum Ahmed as Dhaka posted 53-1 in the first five overs.

However, things took a turn for Dhaka as they struggled to score runs and lost five wickets for just 13 runs to become 94-7 in the 17th over. Eventually, Dhaka could muster 70 runs in the final 15 overs while losing eight wickets.

The seven bowlers used by Khulna were all among the wickets—a BPL record.

Meanwhile, Hasan Mahmud gave away just five runs in his four overs—the joint lowest economy rate in an innings in BPL where all four overs were bowled.

Khulna felt some early jitters while chasing as they lost both Naim Sheikh—the centurion of the previous match—and Afif Hossain for ducks.

But a partnership of 68 runs off 43 balls between Mehidy and Alex Ross paved the way for Khulna.

Mehidy then finished things off with the help of William Bosisto and Mohammad Nawaz to hand Dhaka their ninth defeat of the season.

Talha Jubair, the head coach of the team, saw some silver linings in securing two do-or-die games.

‘The last two matches were a knockout for us,’ Talha told the reporters after the match. ‘The other teams’ knockout will begin on February 3. So we’ve had practice. That’s why the pressure will not be that much in our next match,’

‘We had beliefs that if we could perform according to our capacity, then no one could stand in front of us,’ he added. 

Talha also said that the local players’ performances were the key to their success.

‘Our local collection was fantastic. At the end of the day, the teams that have good local players. We lost momentum along the way, but the local players did better than foreign players,’ Talha said. 

He also hailed his captain for his bravado. He said, ‘If I talk about Mehidy, we were chasing a small total. Sometimes it’s risky. But he played a captain’s knock. Naim has also been among the runs.’

Dhaka batter Sabbir Rahman said that the six consecutive defeats at the start of the tournament cost them in the long run.

‘T20 is a fast game, a game of momentum,’ said Sabbir. ‘We lost the first few matches, and then we were not able to gain the momentum. Even if we got some of it, we couldn’t maintain that.’