Tamim, Gayle thrash Riders
Chris Gayle warmed up with a 26-ball 40 in his first Bangladesh Premier League match of the season at Mirpur yesterday as the Chittagong Vikings thrashed the Rangpur Riders, a team that till the end of the Chittagong leg was on top of the table, by nine wickets.
While Gayle's four sixes and two fours were entertaining to watch, it was his opening partner Tamim Iqbal who went on to top-score for the Vikings with a well-paced half-century. Gayle's arrival seemed to inspire Tamim to go for a big knock as he hit nine fours and one six during his unbeaten 48-ball 62.
Batting first, the Rangpur Riders only managed to score 124 in the allotted 20 overs. While Rangpur did begin well with Soumya Sarkar hitting a fluent 21-ball 26, they collapsed once he was dismissed.
Soumya went down the track against Shubhashis Roy in the sixth over and only managed to top-edge the delivery to mid-wicket. Three overs later Taskin Ahmed struck twice to bowl both Mohammad Mithun and Mohammad Shahzad in the 10th over. After 10 overs Rangpur had slumped to 62 for three and never managed to recover from there.
Anwar Ali came towards the end and hit a quick 13-ball 20 with one six and one four to help the Riders cross the 120-mark.
However, with Chittagong's powerful batting line-up, a meagre 124 was never going to be enough. Gayle and Tamim wiped out more than half of that total in just nine overs when the duo hammered their way through to 70 runs.
What was perhaps most impressive about that partnership was that both the batsmen struggled to score runs in the first six overs. The first six produced just 30 runs with Gayle scoring seven runs from 13 balls while Tamim meandering along to 19 off 23.
Shohag Gazi, who had troubled Gayle a number of times in the past in international cricket, bowled well against both Gayle and Tamim at the start, leaking just seven runs in his first three overs.
However, Gayle began to unleash himself from the seventh over onwards and unfortunately that spoilt Gazi's figures. He was hit for two huge sixes down the ground in the seventh and he ended up with figures of none for 23.
After that, both Gayle and Tamim took on Shahid Afridi in the ninth. The leg-spinner was clubbed for a four by Tamim in the first ball of the ninth over. Gayle then took over and whipped Afridi for two consecutive sixes.
Afridi bowled another flat delivery and managed to get the big man caught at the deep. Gayle was out, but he had already done the damage.
Tamim and Anamul took over from there and finished the game with nine wickets and 24 balls remaining.
Tamim took over after Gayle's departure. The highlight of his innings came in the 13th over when he dismissed Arafat Sunny for 14 runs in boundaries. He hit him for two fours and a six. The last four off the last ball brought up his half-century off 40 deliveries.
He eventually finished the game in style in the 16th over by driving Liam Dawson for two consecutive fours.
The win has taken the Vikings to third place with 10 points. Tamim's unbeaten 62 also catapulted the left-hander to second place in run-getters' list with 285 runs.