BPL Final | Disciplined Comilla Victorians force errors out of Barishal to win tournament

Comilla Victorians are the new Bangladesh Premier League Champions after playing a nerve-wracking encounter against Fortune Barishal on Friday, 18 February by the slimmest of margins of 1 run.

(Access the full scorecard here)

Not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination from either of the teams, it was a kind of encounter where both the sides were very poor for at least 15/40 overs of the game. Themes were similar on the day as both teams got off to a blazing start and then let it fizzle out for the larger part of the innings, and in the bowling department, both teams came back very strongly to establish themselves in the innings.

It could well be said that at the end, it was more about who would make more errors on the day, and there were plenty made, trust me.

But more on that later.

2 performances that stood out

There were two standout performances in the day, one from Comilla Victorians’ Sunil Narine who got the team off to a tremendous start scoring yet another half century and then returning to bowl tight overs in the death that played a huge part in Comilla’s win.

The other was from Shykat Ali, the only change made in the Barishal line-up on the day. Chasing 152 runs in 20 overs, Ali got Barishal off to a start that teams dream of in the finals. While others were found stuck under pressure, Ali smashed his way to a 34-ball 58 to take Comilla out of the game in the first 6 overs. At his time of dismissal, Barishal were at 79/2 in 9.4 overs, needing just 72 runs from more than 10 overs remaining.

How not to approach a T20 game

With 8 wickets in hand, Barishal completely messed the situation up by taking the conservative approach till the 16th over of the game. Barring one big over from Chris Gayle, who desperately needed to get his strike-rate back up to 100 managed 17 runs from two overs before getting out to Sunil Narine.

At the time of getting out, Barishal still needed 45 off 42 with 7 wickets in hand - a cakewalk for any professional T20 team in the world.

But you know that the air had changed by then. 

Tanvir Islam, Mustafizur Rahman and Narine bowled in tandem to choke out the flow of boundaries, and only 2 of them came in the next SIX overs of the game.

And suddenly the equation had changed. Runs had not been scored, wickets had fallen and by then Comilla believed that they can, they can secure this game.

Mistake that could have cost Comilla the game

Fortune Barishal needed 10 off the final over with Shohidul Islam bowling. The same Shohidul Islam who went for 13 runs in his first over.

With Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Towhid Hridoy on strike, Barishal might have had a slim chance of winning, but T20 is a game of maximising the chances on mistakes.

Two runs came from the first three balls, with Shahidul hitting yorkers and low full tosses around the off stump line. Things were fine and processes were followed.

And then came the mistake, one that fast bowlers dread, and in that kind of pressure who could blame them?

Shohidul ran in at full steam, went through his action and bowled a short one - down the leg side - at half speed. An absolute gift for any batters.

But as luck would have it, Hridoy failed to connect and the umpire called it a wide. The last three balls had a single, a catch dropped and a run out when 3 was required off the final ball, and Comilla held on to win one of the most fascinating games in the Bangladesh Premier League this season.

Shakib al Hasan in the post-match presentation admitted that they had made several mistakes that took the game away from them and they would try to do better next season.

But should Barishal have lost the game?

Maybe, maybe not. Down and out in the first 5 overs of the game, owing to Sunil Narine’s elite batting, Barishal came back. Aided by a collective bowling effort, Barishal dragged the game back just 80 more runs in the last 16 overs of the game, picking up six wickets. Three quick wickets of Faf du Plessis, Imrul Kayes and Mahmudul Hasan Joy meant that Comilla lost their entire middle order for a very bare minimum number of runs.

The only time Comilla looked dangerous after Narine’s departure was when Moeen Ali and Abu Hider started connecting their shots late in the death overs. But as usual, Barishal put a nip on it inside the next six balls, making sure that the game did not go away from them.

However, that was not enough as Sunil Narine would once again comeback to haunt them - this time in the death overs of the chase to pick up one important wicket of Dwayne Bravo in the 18th over and giving away just 2 runs.

This led to a big shift in terms of momentum and started the belief that they could actually go on to win the game. And that’s why he was awarded as man of the match of the final game.