Riyad special takes Titans to top

The Chittagong leg of the Bangladesh Premier League started off yesterday with the formbook holding sway as an accomplished half-century from skipper Mahmudullah Riyad proved to be the key performance in Khulna Titans' nine-run defeat of fifth-placed Rangpur Riders, who despite a great rearguard partnership from Ravi Bopara and Nahidul Islam lost the opportunity to leapfrog Sylhet Sixers. Fittingly, the innings that propelled Mahmudullah to the top of the run charts also helped Khulna, who jumped over Dhaka Dynamites and Comilla Victorians to pole position in the seven-team ladder with their fifth win from eight matches.

Khulna put up 158 for eight after Rangpur skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza chose to field first, and the Bopara-Nahidul fifth-wicket stand took them from 45 for four to 145 in the last over, which started with fast bowler Junaid Khan defending 15 runs. Nahidul marked his first match of BPL 2017 by scoring a 43-ball 58 and Bopara hit a 44-ball 59, but an excellent over gave up only five as both set batsmen departed and Rangpur ended on 150 for six in the first match of the day at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. 

Rangpur were on the back foot early when Brendon McCullum departed in the second over, caught in the deep off Afif Hossain. It was the 18-year-old Khulna native's stingy and incisive bowling that set the game up. Chris Gayle lost a battle with Abu Jayed in the third over as he edged behind after hitting two fours and a six, and Mohammad Mithun was run out by a direct hit from Carlos Brathwaite in the fifth. Then, Afif bowled Fazle Mahmud in the eighth over to have figures of two for four from two overs, and it seemed that Rangpur were in for a heavy defeat, but the 100-run fifth-wicket stand ensured that the eager Chittagong crowd witnessed an exciting match.

Before all that, Mahmudullah's 36-ball 59 was the score of note in Khulna's innings. No one else from Khulna crossed 20, which was scored at the top of the order by young left-hander Nazmul Hassan. The skipper came to the crease early with the score on 24 for two after three overs following Afif's dismissal, bowled by a searing Rubel Hossain yorker.

The right-handed Mahmudullah was undeterred by the dismissal of Nazmul, caught off Mashrafe, to bring the score to 49 for three in the seventh over. He unfurled his full and enviable range of strokes in a classy innings. There was the cheeky scoop to a ball on off stump, off Mashrafe in the 11th over; a pull off Thisara Perera over square leg for four; a bash over Rubel's head and the coup de grace: a shimmy down the track to Perera followed by a magnificently timed lofted cover drive that comfortably sailed over the extra cover boundary.

Nicholas Pooran gave him company in a fourth-wicket stand worth 43 and after the West Indian's dismissal Ariful Haque hung around as Khulna reached 130 when Mahmudullah fell to a combination catch at the midwicket boundary off the bowling of Rubel in the 17th over, with McCullum tossing the ball back to Nahidul just before the former ran over the boundary ropes. Ariful departed to Rubel in the same over, leaving Joffra Archer, Brathwaite and Junaid to take them past the 150 mark.