¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·

The bowlers, and then Tamim Iqbal and Dawid Malan, helped Fortune Barishal to ease past Dhaka Capitals to an eight-wicket win in the opening match of the Chattogram phase of the BPL at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium on Thursday. 

Barishal chased down a moderate total of 139 in 16 overs with captain Tamim leading from the front with 61 off 48 balls while Malan was unbeaten on 49 off 31. 

The win lifted Barishal to second in the points table, though a win for Chittagong Kings later in the evening might have changed that. 

On the other hand, after losing their seventh match out of eight, Dhaka’s chance of qualifying for the playoffs has further faded. 

After opting to bat first, Dhaka were bundled out for 139 in 19.3 overs. Their batting affair this time was nowhere near their last match when they smashed the record books three days earlier in Sylhet. 

Liton Das, fresh from his maiden T20 ton in the previous match, didn’t get going as he fell after making 13 off 17. 

Tanzid Hasan—another centurion of the previous match—held the crease from one end, but wickets continued to tumble for the Capitals. 

No substantial contribution from the top or the middle order apart from the left-hander made life very difficult for Dhaka. 

Tanzid was the seventh batter to be dismissed in the 17th over after he had made 62 off 44. Dhaka had 120 by then and only could add 19 from the remaining 19 balls.

Ripon Mondol and Faheem Ashraf—two Barishal pacers—broke through Dhaka’s top order while left-arm spinner Tanvir Islam scalped Sabbir Rahman, Thisara Perera, and Mosaddek Hossain to damage the middle order. 

Ashraf took two wickets while Tanvir took three. Farmanullah made 22 off 16 for Dhaka—the second highest score for them on the day. 

Defending champions Barishal’s chase got an early jitter as Najmul Hossain Shanto was dismissed for two in the second over. 

But a second wicket partnership of 117 runs off 80 balls between Tamim and Malan made sure that Barishal were on their way to a comfortable victory. 

Tamim scored his second fifty of the season with 44 balls. However, Barishal captain was unable to complete the task, being dismissed with 15 runs to go.

Malan, who was playing in his first match of the season, got Barishal home. 

Tamim, however, admitted that they should’ve finished the match earlier to boost their run rate. 

‘I think we needed to play a bit quicker,’ said Tamim in the post-match press conference. ‘If we could’ve finished within 14 overs, given we had wickets in hand, that might have been the trick we missed. Other than that, the batting was fine.’

Tamim also appreciated the increased boundary size at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium compared to the Sylhet International Stadium. 

‘The wickets in this tournament have generally been good. Sylhet was fantastic, and Chattogram is decent too. It’s great to see the boundary size has increased compared to before, which is what you want. Today, we saw many boundary-line catches. This should be the standard size—otherwise, it’s just 52-53 metres,’ he said.