By Himadullah Sohoo 
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This years’ BPL has many close encounters, but those were low scoring games won by Khulna Titans. But today it was a high scoring match between Barisal Bulls and Rajshahi Kings. Barisal Bulls escaped a loss and become winners of close encounter by only 4 runs. As Sabbir Rehman hit ton but went into vain.
Rajshahi Kings won the toss and elected to field first, on a pitch they might be thinking about their decision. Because pitch was flat and batting friendly conditions could have helped them instead of bowling on this. They had a perfect start in 1st over when they got Bulls’ openers’ wicket, when Dilshan Munaweera holes out at Umar Akmal’s hands on bowling of Farhad Reza. Farhad Reza continues his wicket taking form and took 2nd wicket of Bulls in fifth over of innings when David Malan nicks behind; Nurul Hassan didn’t make any mistake. Bulls were 2 down at score of 21 for 2. After Malan, Mushfiq joined Nafees at crease. They both had a partnership of 112 runs; this was the partnership who laid the foundation to post a huge total for Bulls. Shahriar Nafees was the third batsman to fail, but he made 63 runs in 44 balls. Mushfiq was joined by Thisara Perera, they both added 59 more runs to their total which makes 192 for 4, Perera got out on the last ball of innings when his partner mushfiq tried to get two runs out of it. Farhad Reza was the only bowlers of Kings who took 2 wickets and remained economical rest were quite expensive.
When Rajshahi came in to bat to chase down this mammoth total, they lost their first wicket in first over when Raqibul Hassan drives his first ball to Nafees at covers. Rajshahi were 1 for 1 in 1st over. There comes Sabbir Rehman at 3 in first over of chase. Other batsmen were making their way to dug out turn by turn but Sabbir stayed at the crease and batted flawlessly and became first batsman to cross triple figures in this edition. Sabbir Rehman made 122 in 61 balls includes 9 fours and 9 sixes at and was caught by David Malan at mid-wicket on the bowling of Al-Amin Hossain. In this match Umar Akmal got out once again due to bad umpiring in the tournament. He is victimized twice in this edition so far with bad decision taken by Umpires. Rajshahi were in hunt to chase down this total, but their batsmen couldn’t gather themselves. That is why they failed short to this total; otherwise it could be a best chase ever in the tournament history.
Player of the match was decided Sabbir Rehman though his team lost the match, but he played an extra-ordinary innings and rewarded as well.
Smart Scorecard
Barisal Bulls 192/4, 20 overs (Mushfiq 81*, Nafees 63; farhad Reza 2/22)
Rajshahi Kings 188/6, 20 overs (Sabbir 122, Sammy 27; Al-Amin 3/35)
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Zainab Shafiq