Captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz led Khulna Tigers from the front with a 50-ball 70-run innings to beat bottom-placed Sylhet Strikers by six wickets in the last match of the Chattogram phase of this edition鈥檚 BPL at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium on Thursday.聽
Khulna restricted Sylhet to 152-9 in 20 overs before chasing that in 19.5 overs to leapfrog Durbar Rajshahi from fourth position by virtue of a better net run rate (-0.148) than them (-1.400)鈥攚ho both now have eight points. Khulna, however, played one match less than Rajshahi.聽
After losing Rony Talukdar in the first over, George Munsey and Zakir Hasan added 74 runs in 40 balls for the second wicket to put Sylhet on top.聽
Munsey (58 off 32) hit his second fifty of this edition while Zakir made 44 off 32. But after their partnership, Sylhet got nothing mentionable as they kind of nosedived.聽
Excluding Munsey and Zakir, the other nine Sylhet batters made 46 runs while hitting just two fours and a six between them.聽
The six bowlers used by Khulna were all among the wickets, with the pace trio of Abu Hider, Hasan Mahmud, and Salman Irshad each taking two.聽
Mehidy鈥攚ho came to open鈥攁nd Naim Sheikh, then added 65 runs together to bring a solid start for Khulna; 59 of those coming in the powerplay.聽
After losing Naim (20 off 17) and Afif in quick succession, the runs were dried up a bit by Sylhet bowlers as they went 19 deliveries without conceding a boundary.聽
But with wickets in hand, Khulna eventually got home without that much of a problem thanks to Alex Ross (20 off 23) and William Bosisto (19 off 11).聽