Dhaka Suffer Ninth Consecutive Defeat In BPL 

Durdanto Dhaka suffered their ninth consecutive defeat in the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) 2024 as they lost to Fortune Barishal by 27-run at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram on Wednesday.

Barishal Captain Tamim Iqbal smashed a 45 ball-71 to reach his side 186-6 in the stipulated 20 overs.  Among others, Soumya Sarkar, Ahmed Shehzad and Mohammad Saifuddin added 28, 24 and 23 not out respectively. 

Saifuddin (3-31) also played a vital role to restrict Dhaka for 159-8, despite a stellar effort of Alex Ross who was unbeaten 89 off 49. Barishal’s another pace bowler Syed Khaled Ahmed took 3-26. 

Dhaka’s next highest scorer was Sean Williams who scored 12 while Naim Sheikh and Taskin Ahmed made 10 runs each. The rest of the batters were dismissed in single digit figures.

With the day’s win, Barishal reached the third spot of the seven-team point table, replacing hosts Chattogram Challengers, who had the same 10 points but moved down to fourth spot due to poor run rate. 

In the match, Ross came to the crease when Dhaka were slumped to 17-3 and kept Barishal bowlers on toes, hitting sixes at will, but still Barishal bowlers kept taking wickets at the regular intervals amid Ross’ whirlwind knock.

Saifuddin sliced the top order, Khaled took care of middle order by ripping through them in a gem of pace bowling.

Earlier, Tamim, who struck seven fours and four sixes in his knock, along with Ahmed Shehzad paved the ground with a 76-run partnership for the opening stand and that too in 50 balls. 

Alauddin Babu who claimed 3-30 to be the pick of Dhaka bowlers, broke through with the wicket of Shehzad and then dismissed Tamim Iqbal.

Soumya’s 23 ball-28 runs knock however kept the flow while Saifuddin’s six ball-23 not out ensured that Barishal would end up with a big total despite late order slump.

Taskin Ahmed grabbed 2-30 while Shoriful ended with 1-40 in four overs.