Sports
Bangabandhu T20 Cup Cricket: Mashrafe stars with a five wicket haul, helps Khulna reach final of Bangabandhu T20 Cup
Dhaka, December 15: Bangladesh's cricket legend and former captain of the national team, Mashrafe BIn Mortaza helped his team, Gemcon Khulna, reach the finals with a five-wicket haul in the qualifier match. Mashrafe claimed half the opponent's wickets while giving away 35 runs.�
Paying against Gazi Group Chattogram, Mashrafe dealth double blows in his first spell. He took three more in the next two spells, thus recording his best T-20 bowling figures. Mashrafe also collected the Player of the Match prize for his exploits.
His previous best was four wickets for 11 runs in a Bangladesh Premier League.
Interestingly, Chattogram batsman Liton Das opened the innings explosively. Hitting a boundary and a sin in the second and fouth balls respectively. He took a single in the fifth ball and things went horribly wrong since.
Liton's partner Soumya Sarkar tried to hit a six in the final ball of Mashrafe's first over and holed out to the deep.
In the next over of Al-Amin Hossain, Liton picked up 12 runs with a four and a six. But the highest run-getter of the tournament could not hold such a stormy start. Liton, who scored 24 off 13 balls, could not understand the difference between the bounce in the fourth over of the innings and the second over by Mashrafe. Khulna captain Mahmudullah Riyad removed him from the attack after taking two wickets for 18 runs in two overs.
Mahmudul Hasan Joy and Mohammad Mithun put on 63 off 46 balls for the third wicket. Mashrafe broke the stand in the second spell. Imrul Kayes, who scored 31 off 26 balls in the first ball of the twelfth over, took the catch. Mahmudullah removed Mashrafe from bowling again after he broke the stand.
Mashrafe gave 8 runs in the first three balls of that over. But in the next three balls he took the wickets of Shamsur Rahman (18 off 10 balls) and Mostafizur Rahman (0 off 2 balls), returned with the best bowling figures of his career.
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