An all-round show by Khaled Ahmed spearheaded Chittagong Kings’ thrashing of Sylhet Strikers to secure their place in the playoffs of the BPL as they beat the latter by 96 runs at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Thursday.
Chittagong posted 196-8 in 20 overs while Sylhet were bundled out for just 100 in 15.2 overs.
Chittagong have now joined Fortune Barishal, who have already secured a top-two finish, and the Rangpur Riders. If Chittagong can beat Barishal in their next
match on Saturday, they will also join Barishal in the top two, toppling Rangpur.
Put into bat first, Chittagong recovered from 17-2 thanks to fifties from opener Khawaja Nafay (52 off 30), captain Mohammad Mithun (53 off 38), and late blitzes from Shamim Hossain (38 off 23) and Khaled (25* off 13).
Mithun and Nafay added 94 off 51 for the third wicket while Khaled and Shamim lifted them by adding 61 off 30 for the seventh wicket.
Tanzim Hasan took 3-37 while Ruyel Miah and Shamiullah Shinwari each took two.
In reply, Sylhet kept losing wickets regularly as Shoriful Islam and Khaled were all over the already eliminated teams’ batters.
The pacer duo each took four wickets. Shoriful took 4-5 while Khaled took 4-31.