Bashar saves Barisal blushes

Habibul Bashar scored a half-century to save the Barisal blushes against Khulna on the first day of their three-day National League match at the Abdur Rab Serniabad Stadium yesterday.

With the wickets tumbling at the other end, the home side skipper got his head down and went on to hit 67 as Barisal reached 158 before being all out in 55.2 overs.

Electing to bat first, Barisal soon plunged into deep trouble, the scoreboard reading at one stage five for 74.

Coming in to bat at number three after the fall of first wicket on 4 in the very first over bowled by Monjurul, Habibul batted out another 34 overs carefully, taking the score to 117. The inform right-hander perished, edging to wicketkeeper Tuhin off the bowling of medium pacer Jamaluddin.

In his 100-ball innings, Habibul hit eight boundaries.

Habibul shared the highest Barisal partnership of 42 with lower middle-order Totam, who scored 13. Number nine and ten batsmen Saleh Ahmed (20) and Milon (12) were the other batsmen who could reach double figure mark.

For the visitors, Jamaluddin took highest four wickets for 51 runs from his 17.2 overs. Fellow left-arm seamer Manjurul and Ahmed Kamal evenly shared six wickets among them, conceding 36 and 21 runs respectively.

In reply, Khulna negotiated 34 overs before the close of play and produced 93 for three, with opener Sajid Hasan batting on 43. Middle-order Saeed scored a 64-ball 32.

Khulna need another 66 runs today to take a first innings lead over the home side.

Khulna have earned six points so far from nine matches while Barisal have only 4 points.