Mohammad Mithun played a captain’s knock, as Sylhet Strikers tasted their first win in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) cricket after defeating Duranto Dhaka by 15 runs on Friday.
Held at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium Stadium, Sylhet Strikers finally succeeded to break their losing draught after suffering five defeats at a stretch and now they lifted their position to sixth from the bottom off seven-team franchise.
However, on the day, at the initial stage of the innings Strikers looked to see another debacle when Duranto Dahka opting to field, sent Sylhet Strikers to bat and initiated their attack with Shoriful Islam gave a brilliant start to the innings by returning Shamsur Rahman and Nazmul Hossain Shanto for a duck and three runs respectively.
After the openers departure in a quick succession, Shoriful struck again with sending back Zakir Khan for a duck with the scorecard reading 13 for three wickets.
Shoriful, who turned danger from the very first over, took all three early wickets when he bowled Shamsur Rahman, Shanto and Zakir.
Then, Samit Patel and Mohammad Mithun recovered well when the fourth wicket stand stitched a partnership of 57 runs to tackle the initial pressure until Arafat Sunny gave the breakthrough by removing Samit Patel on 70 runs. Patel scored 32 runs from as many balls three fours and a six.
After losing Patel, Mithun then single-handedly brought the Strikers to a respectable position with scoring 59 off 46 deliveries with hitting four boundaries and three sixes when the middle order bat continued his batting up to 19.4 overs before being caught by Saim Ayub off Taskin.
Arful Haque, the number eight bat also scored an excellent 21 runs innings from only nine deliveries hammering three sixes.
Strikers finally accumulated a respectable total of 142 runs for eight wickets.
Duranta Dhaka, who have been also struggling after making a winning start defeating the reigning champions Comilla Victorians five wickets, suffered four defeats in a row including today’s match.
Replying to a moderate target, Duranto Dhaka also made a struggling start with losing first wicket on14 runs when Ngarava picked up the opener Saim Ayub. Nagava struck again with bowling out Mohammed Naim, the another opener for only two runs.
After losing two openers for 19 runs, Duranto Dhaka could not get rid of the early trouble, as they lost nine wickets in regular intervals and finally could managed to score 127 runs for nine wickets.
