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Zakir Hasan’s unbeaten 75 off 46 and the bowlers helped Sylhet Strikers to secure their second successive victory after losing the first three as they edged past Khulna Tigers in a close encounter at the Sylhet International Stadium on Sunday. 

Khulna fell short of eight runs in their chase of 182 to suffer their second successive defeat after winning the first two. They failed to chase down near-180 targets on both occasions. 

Sylhet had a forgettable powerplay after being put into bat first, as they lost two wickets and scored only 21 runs from the first six overs. 

But the ‘home’ team dominated the middle overs thanks to a 62-ball 106-run partnership between Rony Talukdar (56 off 44) and Zakir. Sylhet scored 130 runs between the seventh and 17th overs.

Rony fell soon after reaching his fifty, but Zakir remained till the end. Though Jaker Ali suffered a golden duck, Aaron Jones (20 off six) and captain Ariful Haque (21* off 13) made sure that Sylhet got a competitive total. 

Ariful, though, said that they were confident with the total they got. ‘I think it was a good total to win as the balls were coming a bit slow,’ said the Sylhet captain after the match. 

Khulna, on the other hand, couldn’t get the desired partnerships in the first phase of the match as they lost three wickets in the powerplay. 

William Bosisto struggled particularly against spin and got out after making a sluggish 40-ball 43. 

They needed 83 from the last six. But Mohammad Nawaz (33 off 18), Mahidul Islam (28 off 16), and Abu Hider occasionally showed some glimpses of hope for Khulna. 

Tanzim Hasan and Ruyel Miah, however, held their nerve to restrict Khulna in the chase. Both pacers took two wickets while Reece Topley also took two. 

Ariful later said that his trust paid off. ‘To be honest, in T20s, anything can happen,’ said the Sylhet captain. ‘But I trusted Sakib [Tanzim] in the last phase. And then even if 15-16 were required, Ruyel could’ve covered that.’

He also hoped that two wins would give them more confidence to finish within the top four. The all-rounder said, ‘When you keep losing, the confidence will be low. As we won back-to-back matches, the tournament is still open for us. If we can win two to three matches, then we will be able to play in the playoffs.’

Khulna, on the other hand, want to think of two losses as bumps in the road. 

Abu Hider, who got out with his team needing 10 from the last three deliveries, said, ‘It’s not that kind of a shock as we are professionals. We are backing ourselves. We will try to rectify the mistakes we made in this game.’