Riders crush Victorians by 9 wkts in one-sided affairs

Sports Desk: Defending champions Rangpur Riders crushed former champions Comilla Victorians by 9 wickets in their 3rd match of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Mashrafe Bin Mortaza-led Riders, which lost the first match of the season to Chittagong Vikings by three wickets, strongly bounced back in the 2nd match beating Khulna Titans by eight runs to share the 2nd spot securing four points from three outings.

Sent in to bat first in the day’s 2nd match, Comilla Victorians were bundled out cheaply for 63 runs in 16.2 overs against T20 career best bowling of four-wicket haul for 11 runs in quota four overs by captain Mashrafe. This is also the first four-wicket haul by Mashrafe in the BPL.

Comilla were struggling from the very beginning of their innings losing five wickets for just 18 runs with Mashrafe making damage. Comilla’s 63 runs is their lowest total and overall 4th lowest first-innings total in the history of BPL.

Shahid Afridi, the Pakistani super-star, was the only batsman to touch a two-digit score in Comilla Victorians innings. He scored 25 off 18 balls with three fours and one six.

Mashrafe finished his bowling quota of four overs taking four wickets with 18 dot balls. He started his hunting taking the wicket of Tamim Iqbal.

Later, Mashrafe was adjudged man of the match.

Taking four wickets for 11 runs, Mashrafe surpassed his previous best bowling in the BPL of three wickets for 16 runs.

Apart from Mashrafe, Shafiul Islam and Nazmul Islam Apu grabbed three wickets for 20 while Shafiul Islam took two wickets for 8 runs.

Rangpur Riders chased down the target scoring 67 runs in 12 overs losing only one wicket of batting sensation Chris Gayle (1). Rilee Rossouw and Mehedi Marul remained unbeaten on 20 and 36 respectively.

Abu Hider Rony took the lone wicker conceding 11 runs.

Rangpur will play their next match against Dhaka Dynamites on January 11 at 2pm and on the same day, Comill will face Rajshahi Kings at 7pm. Both the matches will be held at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.

risingbd/Dhaka/January 09, 2019/AKA