Rangpur Riders eliminated from BPL race by Khulna Tigers

 
Khulna Tigers eliminated Rangpur Riders from the final race of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), beating them by nine wickets on Monday at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.

It was a dramatic fall for Rangpur in this BPL that they started with eight straight wins. Now they suffered five defeats in the row, and were eliminated from the race of the final battle.

With this win, Khulna marched to the second qualifier on February 5, which will take place at the same venue in Dhaka.

Rangpur won the toss and batted first, but they stumbled for only 85 runs. Nasum Ahmed who was adjudged the player of the match caused the most problems taking three wickets for 16 runs while skipper Mehidy Hasan Miraz also bagged three wickets for 10 runs.

In reply, Khulna lost their captain Mehidy, who opened the innings, for a duck. But they never looked back from there. In the second wicket, Mohammad
Naim and Alex Ross forged an 87-run stand and guided them to a spectacular win to book a place in the second qualifier on February 5.

Both Naim and Ross remained unbeaten for 48 off 33 and 29 off 27 balls respectively.

Earlier, Khulna Tigers raised the prospect of giving a shot at the final of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) after dismissing Rangpur Riders for 85 runs in 16.5 overs in an Eliminator clash.

Spinner's duo-Nasum Ahmed and skipper Mehidy Hasan Miraz, shared six wickets between them evenly to wreak havoc on the much-vaunted batting line of Rangpur who recruited the franchise cricket's big name Andre Russell, Tim David and James Vince for the game.

But all of them were dismissed for single-digit figures after Rangpur opted to bat first. The trio collectively made 12 runs.

Miraz and Nasum stifled Rangpur right from the beginning, conceding just 10 runs and 16 respectively for three wickets each after bowling four overs.
Their tight bowling left Rangpur at a precarious 32-6, raising the prospect of being all out below 50.

No. 10 batter Akif Javed hit 18 ball-32 with four fours and two sixes while skipper Nurul Hasan Sohan made 23. They were the only two batters who could reach double digits.

Rangpur started the tournament with a bang by winning eight straight matches but thereafter they lost four matches on the trot to end the group phase as a third-placed team and were forced to play the Eliminator.

In the last two editions of BPL too, they did quite well in the group phase but lost the Eliminator game to be eliminated from the final race.
Teams:

Khulna Tigers (Playing XI): Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Mohammad Naim, Afif Hossain, Alex Ross, Shimron Hetmyer, Mahidul Islam Ankon(w/c), Jason Holder, Mohammad Nawaz, Musfik Hasan, Nasum Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud

Rangpur Riders (Playing XI): Soumya Sarkar, James Vince, Saif Hassan, Mahedi Hasan, Tim David, Nurul Hasan(w/c), Andre Russell, Mohammad Saifuddin, Rakibul Hasan, Akif Javed, Nahid Rana