Sunzamul rocks East

North Zone's Sunzamul Islam bagged a fifer, scalping four wickets on the second day of their Bangladesh Cricket League fourth round encounter against East Zone yesterday at the Shahid Kamruzzaman Stadium in Rajshahi.

Sunzamul, who took the important wicket of Mohammad Ashraful after the former Bangladesh skipper had scored a 251-ball 136, ended with a figure of five for 115 runs.

East's overnight batsmen --  Rony Talukdar and Ashraful -- started the day on the back of their magnificent 241-run fourth-wicket partnership but unfortunately the pair could only add three more to the total as Rony fell prey to Ebadat Hossain early in the day. Rony, who authored a sublime 245-ball 185, missed out on the opportunity to score a double-ton as he could only notch 2 runs yesterday.

It was all downhill for East after that. They survived only the first session of the day, stretching their first innings total to 466 runs before being bundled out.

In reply, North ended the day on a high note after managing a score of 178 for two at close. The two openers Junaid Siddique and Jahurul Islam scored 51 and 65 runs respectively.

In the other match between Central Zone and South Zone at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram, Central's struggles continued as they added 27 runs to their overnight score and ended their first innings with 261 runs on the board after having played 97.4 overs.

Coming in to bat, South experienced an early jolt as they lost opener Shahriar Nafees in the third over with just six runs on the board. However, a 146-run partnership between Fazle Mahmud and Anamul Haque steadied the ship before Fazle was trapped in front of an Arafat Sunny delivery after scoring 74 runs off 99 deliveries. Anamul, who scored 77 runs off 118 balls, was the next one to fall.

South ended the day on 309 for five in 82.1 overs and lead by 48 runs with five wickets remaining in the innings. Raqibul Hasan remained unbeaten on 54 runs.