Shakib storm keeps Comilla victory-less

Comilla Victorians succumbed to their third consecutive defeat in the BPL as Shakib Al Hasan's Fortune Barishal continued their victory march. A very strong side on paper, Comilla went very close to the target against Barishal but eventually fell 12 runs short.

With this win, Barishal are now sitting in the second position, only behind Mashrafe Mortaza's Sylhet Strikers who have won four out of four.

Earlier, Barishal were powered by a magnificent 45-ball-81 from their skipper Shakib Al Hasan. Apart from him, only Ibrahim Zadran crossed 25.

Shakib added a crucial 50 for the fourth wicket with Zadran and then really opened up the shoulders after the latter's fall. Shakib reached his fifty off 31 balls and his next 35 runs came at a strike-rate of more than 200.

The all-rounder struck eight fours and four sixes in the innings which was his second-highest score in the BPL and the highest in the last 11 years.

Shakib's knock took Barishal to 177 for six. There were contributions from Zadran (27 off 20), Chaturanga de Silva (21 off 12) and Anamul Haque Bijoy (20 off 20). Karim Janat played a cameo of 10 not out off five balls. 

Left-arm spinner Tanvir Islam picked up a four-wicket haul for 33 runs. Spinners Nayeem Hasan and Khushdil Shah took one each.

In reply, Comilla batters got starts but those weren't enough to chase a sizeable target. Both the openers - Litton Das (32 off 26) and Mohammad Rizwan (18 off 11) started well but couldn't make a big one. 

There were decent contributions from captain Imrul Kayes (28 off 15) and Mosaddek Hossain (27 off 19) down the order but it was Khushdil (43* off 27) who got them really close. 

Shakib, de Silva, Iftikhar Ahmed, Janat and Kamrul Islam were among the wickets. 

Comilla were hurt by Mustafizur Rahman's injury because of which he couldn't bowl more than one over. In the post-match presentation, Comilla captain Kayes said his premier bowler's injury cost a lot. 

"We'll try to sit together and discuss what needs to be done [to get the results]. We need some momentum so that we manage to bounce back in the tournament," Kayes said.

Shakib, the player of the match, said that it wasn't a docile track and they had to work hard for runs.

"We batted well, in all the four games. It wasn't a flat track, so we had to work hard for those runs. We knew we were always in the game with four spinners. We want our top order to score big runs, it's important to keep wickets in hand. We can get close to 100 runs in the last 10 overs if we have wickets in hand. 170-175 was a good total on this track," he said.

The Barishal captain praised the foreign all-rounder and the flexibility they bring to the team.

"Karim [Janat] bowled a brilliant second last over. Iftikhar was tremendous today. We got a good all-round team that gives us the luxury to move around with the bowlers. We have a little break, hopefully we regroup and rethink before the next game," Shakib concluded