Pirates power into semis
Pirates of Chittagong made it to the semifinals of the Port City T20 Cricket League with a 3-run victory over Bengal Tigers in a nailbiting encounter at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium yesterday. Despite the defeat, Bengal Tigers also made it to the semis from this group.
The Pirates started plundering the Bengal Tigers attack from very early in the innings. The two openers, Rony Talukdar and Aftab Ahmed got severe on the opening bowlers, smashing them out of the ground with regularity. Aftab brought up the team's fifty in the fifth over with two huge sixes, one over square-leg and the next over long-on.
They were going at eleven-an-over when the first wicket fell after seven overs. Reddi forced Rony to play a false stroke and the batsman's castle was cleaned. Two balls later, the same caused the downfall of newcomer Mushfiqur Rahim, who had danced down the wicket, to find his castle disturbed by the keeper this time. Next came in Alok Kapali, the man with a big reputation of clean-hitting and lived up to his reputation. Kapali and Aftab took the onslaught a little further before the latter got out for 57 that took only thirty-four balls.
After his departure, the run rate slowed down a bit, but Kapali stayed there to make sure the Pirates put on a big enough score to daunt the opposition. Kapali trail-blazed with 51 from 33 balls to set up a total of 185 for the loss of eight wickets. The two spinners Rajesh Sharma and Reddi took two wickets each.
Bengal Tigers' chase began in the worst possible fashion as they lost a wicket off the very first ball of the innings. But they got back in the groove through Hemant Kumar. Despite losing a couple of more wickets, the Tigers kept in the chase as Hemant took them past hundred with his fifty. But he soon departed trying to launch into Arafat Sunny only in finding Yaseer Hameed's safe hands. Devendra's 46 and Arindam's 23 kept their hopes alive. But at 128 for 5 they looked falling behind the target until Sachin came out to the middle and turned the game on its head with a hurricane knock. He smashed Rashed Hanif three consecutive balls out of the park to bring down the equation to 16 from six balls. Shabhashish Roy came to bowl the last over, and bowled a few good to keep the six balls to going for 12 runs as Tigers fell short by just three runs.
SCORES IN BRIEF
PIRATES OF CHITTAGONG: 185 for 8 in 20 overs (Aftab 57, Kapali 51, Rony 37; Rajesh and Reddi 2 wickets each)
BENGAL TIGERS: 182 for 5 in 20 overs (Hemant 53, Devendra 46, Sachin 33 not out; Hanif 2 wickets)
Result: Pirates of Chittagong won by 3 runs.
Man-of-the-match: Aftab Ahmed.
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