Abahani revive Super League hopes as Shamsurs ton goes in vain
Mohammedan regain top spot in DPL
Sports Reporter
While Mohammedan Sporting Club regained its top spot in the Dhaka Premier League (DPL), Abahani Limited revived the hopes of playing super league thanks to a gem of fast bowling from Taskin Ahmed.
Mohammedan recovered from a relatively uncomfortable situation to crush Prime Bank Cricket Club by 82 runs at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium to go on top. The Motijheel outfit and Prime Doleshwar now have equal 12 points but the former topped the table with better run rate.
At BKSP-3 ground, Taskin Ahmed helped Abahani overcome a scintillating century of Shamsur Rahman Shuvo to outclass Gazi Group Cricketers by 32 runs.
Both of the game went to reserve day after the rain ruined the progress.
For Abahani, all of the matches of the first phase now turn out to be a must-win game in a bid to move into the super six phase after they sealed three wins in first seven games. Despite forming a strong team on paper, the Dhanmondi outfit hardly found their groove but they came back strongly in the eighth round and broke the first hurdle.
Taskin Ahmed took the game on his head after Abahani batsmen piled up a respectable 276 for six with Indian recruit Rajat Bhatia blasting an unbeaten 90 on his inaugural match at Dhaka League. Skipper Tamim Iqbal also hit 55 and during the course of the knock he reached 6000 runs landmark in List A cricket as the first Bangladeshi batsman.
Gazi were bowled out for 244 in 48.2 overs despite a 130 ball-136 from opener Shamsur Rahman Shuvo.
He threatened to pull off a brilliant victory despite Taskin gave Abahani a tremendous start having removed Anamul Haque Bijoy and Mehedi Hasan in the first two balls of the innings.
From 0 for two, Gazi were made 14 for three as Shahadat Hossain Rajib, back to the competitive cricket for the first time after one and half years, took out Saeed Anwar Junior. There was no respite for Gazi yet with Taskin again struck, dismissing Farhad Hossain for naught to leave them 25 for four.
While Shuvo kept one end intact, Alok Kapali and Elias Sunny came up with little contribution to frustrate Abahani. Taskin however came back in his second spell to remove Shuvo and finally dashed the hopes of Gazi to win the match.
Shuvo smashed 13 fours and three sixes in his knock but it went in vain with Taskins four for 32 keeping the side in the super league hunt.
Mohammedan didnt find it tough to seal the deal even though Prime Bank made a raucous start. After Mohammedan compiled a relatively poor score of 224 before being all out in 49.2 overs, Prime Bank made a fluent start. They were 41 for one in 6.2 overs, before the rain took the game to the reserve day.
Sabbir Rahman and Mehedi Maruf, the two overnight batsmen seemed to make it one-way traffic as they started from where they left. But when Shuvashis Roy made the breakthrough having got rid of Sabbir on 41, the wickets started falling like a pack of cards. Mehedi Maruf who topscored with 48 was out as the third batsman to leave the scoreboard 118 for three. Prime then lost the rest of the seven wickets for just 24 runs to be bowled out for 142 in 32.4 overs. Apart from the top three batsmen, no one could reach double digit figure. Naeem Islam Junior was the wrecker-in-chief having scalped four for 21 runs.
