Aliss Al Islam became the unlikely hero for Chittagong Kings as he hit Mushfik Hasan for a boundary on the last ball to snatch a thrilling two-wicket win from the hands of Khulna Tigers to reach the final of the BPL at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday.
Chasing 163, Chittagong needed 15 in the last over. Arafat Sunny scored seven from the first three to give Chittagong a chance. But Aliss injured himself while running for a single on the third ball.
Shoriful Islam, replacing him, hit a four and then got out the next ball. That brought the equation to four off one, and Aliss hit it over extra-cover to take Chittagong their first final since 2013.
Now they will face defending champions Fortune Barishal in the final on Friday.
Earlier, Khulna recovered from a precarious position of 46-4 to post 163-6 in allotted overs thanks to a late blitz from their West Indian recruit Shimron Hetmyer (63 off 33).
Khulna, after being put into bat first, found it hard in the first half of the innings when their score was just 46-4 after 10 overs. Hetmyer, with the help of Mahidul Islam, then lifted them with their partnership of 73 runs off 50 balls.
Mahidul (41 off 23) fell on the first ball of the 18th over after hitting Khaled for a six the previous over, but Hetmyer took off before that.
The left-hander hit Khaled for two consecutive sixes before hitting Shoriful for two successive boundaries.
Binura Fernando felt an extreme heat when Hetmyer went for four, six, six, and four鈥攖he second boundary brought him his 50 off 29 balls.
Fernando saw the back of Hetmyer in that over, but the damage was done. Jason Holder and Mohammad Nawaz then went after Shoriful in the last over.
The explosive last four overs yielded 71 runs for Khulna, which is the highest in BPL playoffs history, also the joint second highest overall.
After a moderate powerplay of 46 runs and two wickets, Chittagong got going in a partnership of 70 off 48 balls between Khawaja Nafay and Hussain Talat for the third wicket.
It seemed an easy pathway for Chittagong when the pair was batting, but soon that changed when Nasum came to bowl in the 13th over.
He broke the partnership by dismissing Talat for 40 off 25 in the first ball. The left-arm spinner struck again on the first ball of his next over when Shamim Hossain top-edged after making just five runs.
Mushfik Hasan then struck twice in three balls to dismiss Nafay and Khaled in the 16th over to push Chittagong further.
Between 13th and 16th overs, Chittagong only scored 17 runs to lose four wickets. Soon that became 25-5 in five overs as Hasan dismissed Mohammad Mithun鈥攑robably the last hope of Chittagong.
Aliss then instilled some hope into them by hitting Holder for six and a four and eventually became the ultimate hero for Chittagong.