Al-Amin makes it two in two for Barisal

Barisal Bulls edged past the Sylhet Superstars by one-run in a 'sea-saw' contest, which went right down to the last ball in Mirpur yesterday.

The exciting low-scoring encounter witnessed a five-wicket haul from Al-Amin including a hattrick, and a confident last over from Taijul Islam which saw him defend eight runs successfully. Unfortunately for Sylhet, this was their second consecutive one-run defeat in two days.

After bundling out Barisal for 108 on a slow track, it was assumed that Mushfiqur Rahim's Sylhet would be able to cruise through.

However, that was not to be as Al-Amin caused early damage with a brilliant hattrick. It was a phenomenal spell of bowling from the 25-year-old. 

Sylhet initially lost Mominul Haque in the second over, who edged one to the keeper. In his next over, Al-Amin bowled a similar delivery to get Ravi Bopara caught behind in the second ball. While that delivery moved away from the batsman, his next wicket, Quazi Nurul Hasan, came courtesy of a beautiful in-swinger.

For Al-Amin to complete the hattrick, he had to get Sylhet's main man, Mushfiqur Rahim out and at the onset it seemed like a near-impossible task, for the little man has been in terrific form ever since the Zimbabwe series.

However, Al-Amin managed to bowl the perfect delivery to uproot Mushfiqur's stumps. It was quick, pitched up and swung just enough to beat Mushfiqur's front-foot defence.

The mood that he set with his five-wicket haul was in compete contrast to the one that he had created just before the end of Barisal innings. After getting bowled by his national colleague, Mohammad Shahid in the 20th over, Al-Amin went to the bowler and gave him an unnecessary shove. Mushfiqur had to run from his keeping position to separate the players.

After Al-Amin reduced Sylhet to 18 for 4, Dilshan Munaweera and Owais Shah shared a 43-run stand for the fifth wicket and helped revive the innings. 

Both Shah and Munaweera, though, were removed by Taijul in the 12th over and it brought the momentum back towards Barisal. They could have further stamped their authority if Nazmul Islam Apu was caught in the 15th over off Taijul at long-on. The fielder however, just managed to push it out of the boundary for a six.

That brought the equation down to 20 runs off 24 balls and that's when the intensity of the match notched up a degree.

Mohammad Sami removed Apu in the last ball of the 17th over before Al-Amin came back to remove Nazmul Hossain in the third ball of the 19th over, to complete his five-wicket haul. However, a boundary from Fidel Edwards in the last ball of that over brought the equation down to eight runs off six balls.

Shahid, though, was caught in the first ball of the last over and eventually Sylhet's last pair was drained out and managed just six runs.