Vikings overrun Barisal

The Chittagong leg of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) ended on a brilliant note for the Chittagong Vikings yesterday as Tamim Iqbal and co thrashed Mushfiqur Rahim's Barisal Bulls by 78 runs at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.

The win has helped the Vikings, who prior to the Chittagong leg seemed quite hapless, consolidate the fourth spot in the BPL table and go level with the Dhaka Dynamites with eight points each. At the top of the table are the Rangpur Riders, who beat the Khulna Titans by seven wickets yesterday, with ten points. The Titans, who also have 10 points, are placed second.

It was Chittagong's foreign players who paid the dividends yesterday, beginning with Dwayne Smith smacking Barisal's bowlers all over the park with a 49-ball 69. It was an innings which witnessed three sixes and six fours.

After he was dismissed by Thisara Perera in the 16th over, Pakistan's Shoaib Malik took over the baton and started attacking the bowlers towards the end of the innings. He ended up scoring 63 runs off just 30 balls with nine fours and two sixes. It was an entertaining finish with Malik hitting 10 boundaries in the last five overs.

The finale was brilliant with the Paksitani all-rounder tearing apart Rayad Emrit for 14 runs off the first three balls of the final over. He hit him for two fours and a six. The first four of that over brought up his half-century in just 26 balls. The half-centuries from Smith and Malik took the Vikings to 185.

After the exchange, Barisal's batsmen imploded and the game was pretty much over by the seventh over when they collapsed to 37 for five.

As always, Afghanistan's Mohammad Nabi put in a good performance and removed the openers Dawid Malan and Nadif Chowdhury in the first two overs. While he bowled Malan, he got Nadif got caught at long-on.

Barisal's highest run-getter, Shahriar Nafees, was bowled in the third over by Shubashis Roy and that was followed with Jeevan Mendis getting dismissed by Nabi in the fourth over.

They lost their four wickets before the Powerplay and lost Mushfiqur Rahim off the last ball of the seventh over. Under pressure, Mushfiqur tried to hit Taskin for a six through his favourite area, the cow corner, but instead was caught at deep mid-wicket.

Taskin continued his good run and trapped Emrit with an extremely quick delivery in the ninth over. By then the Bulls were struggling at 39 for seven.

Their last few batsmen managed to put up some form of resistance, but they were eventually bundled out for 107 in 18.4 overs.

While Nabi finished with three wickets, Taskin and Shubashis took 2 each.