Khulna Tigers eliminated Rangpur Riders from the final race of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), beating them by nine wickets on Monday at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.
It was a dramatic fall for Rangpur in this BPL that they started with eight straight wins. Now they suffered five defeats in the row, and were eliminated from the race of the final battle.
With this win, Khulna marched to the second qualifier on 5 February, which will take place at the same venue in Dhaka.
Rangpur won the toss and batted first, but they stumbled for only 85 runs. Their top five batters collectively failed to score only 14 runs, at which point Rangpur lost momentum and was never able to recover from that early fall.
Nurul Hasan Sohan and Akif Javed were the only batters of Rangpur who reached a double-digit total. While Sohan posted 23, Akif scored 32 runs.
But their efforts did not meet what Rangpur required following the failure of the top order.
Rangpur fielded James Vince, Tim David, and Andre Russell in this match, but they all failed to produce the expected performance.
For Khulna, captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Nasum Ahmed shared six wickets among them and destroyed Rangpur’s batting line.
Mehidy conceded only 10 runs in four overs to take three wickets, while Nasum gave away 16 runs to take three more.
In reply, Khulna lost their captain Mehidy, who opened the innings, for a duck. But they never looked back from there. In the second wicket, Mohammad Naim and Alex Ross forged an 87-run stand and guided them to a spectacular win to book a place in the second qualifier on 5 February.
Both Naim and Ross remained unbeaten for 48 off 33 and 29 off 27 balls respectively.
In the next match of the day, current BPL champions Fortune Barishal will take on Chittagong Kings. The winner will marched to the final of 7 February, and the loser will take on Khulna Tigers in the second qualifier on 5 February.
