BPL 2022 | Comilla hijack top slot in points table; demolish Khulna by 65 runs

Comilla Victorians stole the first position in the points table away from Fortune Barishal by defeating Khulna Tigers comprehensively on Friday, 11 February.

The injection of Moeen Ali and Faf du Plessis looks like the exact push Comilla needed to get their campaign back on track as An all round act by Moeen Ali made sure that Comilla won their second game in a row after a big defeat against Barishal on 7 February. 

An all round act by Moeen Ali made sure that Comilla were leaps and bounds ahead of Khulna, who seem to be losing it at the back end of the group stages. Khulna stood no chance on the day while chasing 189 runs and got wrapped up at 123 by the 19.3 overs.

The English all rounder took two wickets for just 20 runs from his five overs after scoring an incredible 75 in the first innings. He removed two of the most dangerous batsmen in the Khulna line-up - Soumya Sarkar and Imrul Kayes who have been in good touch in the tournament. Khulna were guilty of losing wickets in a bunch while chasing a big total.  They lost openers Andre Fletcher and Rony Talukdar in back to back deliveries from Mustafizur Rahman in the second over of the game. Their hopes of any resistance ran away after they further lost three wickets in a space of four overs and saw half their team back in the dugout by the 10th over of the game. 

Rest of it was just a formality and Nahidul Islam along with Abu Hider and Tanvir Islam cleaned up the rest to seal a huge 65 run victory.

Earlier in the day, two separate onslaughts from the Comilla Victorians soared their score up to 188 in the first innings. Inside the powerplay overs it was Liton Das’ 41 off 17 balls that helped Comilla get a positive start. After scoring 52/1 in the first six overs, Liton’s wicket paved the way for Khulna to get back in the game. The spinners operated in tandem to keep the run rate around 6.5 as the new batters in Faf du Plessis and Moeen Ali took time to get their eyes into the pitch.

Once Moeen cut loose in the 13th over, there was no stopping him. The duo put up a partnership of 83 off just 46 balls of which Moeen scored 59. With du Plessis struggling at the end, Ali went for everything pitched up to him. Captain Mushfiqur Rahim was to blame in this situation for not opting to bowl out Thisara Perera but sticking with part-timer Soumya Sarkar instead. In the over that du Plessis got out trying to hit a six, Sarkar was belted for 20 runs.

After du Plessis’ dismissal Moeen Ali carried on briefly till the final ball of the 19th over and at the time of getting out, Comilla had already put on 174 runs for the loss of 6 wickets. 14 runs were scored off the final over that took them to the huge total of 188 runs.

With the win Comilla Victorians qualified for the playoffs stages with six wins to their name from 9 matches. Khulna on the other hand would have to shake the defeat off and come back tomorrow to play their final encounter of the day and hope to make it to the playoffs stages.