Mushy content with Bulls' late charge

Nearly four thousand spectators deserved credit for their patience after they turned up to watch last night's Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) match at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.

The credit is especially owed as they waited till the last ball by which point it was hard to understand what the purpose was behind Rajshahi Kings' batting after Barisal Bulls' ordinary effort saw them reach 161 for four.

They might have been waiting for Kings captain Darren Sammy, but the West Indian was not allowed by his top-order batsmen to entertain the small crowd in a meaningful way.

However Samit Patel, who scored 62 off 51 balls for Rajshahi, shouldered the blame after the match, saying that they should have gone for big shots earlier in their innings.

Patel thought that they had conceded 15 runs too many which saw them losing the game by 17 runs.

On the other hand, Barisal Bulls captain Mushfiqur Rahim came to the press conference in an upbeat mood, although he said that he would have been happier if his team had gotten a win like this a few games earlier.

While his team still have the chance to reach the last four, the Bulls skipper was only looking to win the last game.

“Why are there only a few [reporters] here? I hoped it would be a big crowd as I came here as a winning captain,” joked Mushfiqur before starting off the post-match press conference.

“I am happy with today's performance. Yes, after scoring over 100 runs in 13 overs I had expected a much better total -- at least 170 -- but we could not get the expected runs as we lost two set batsmen. Anyway, 161 was still a competitive score and my bowlers bowled really well,” said Mushfiqur.

“If you look at the other side, we were not a strong side but still I had the hope of reaching the last four. But unfortunately, we did not perform according to our expectations in the last few matches. Now I am looking forward to finishing with a win,” he added.

The matches in Dhaka have not yielded as many runs as the matches in Chittagong, but Mushfiqur was not willing to blame the pitches.

“I think if you compare them to last season's, the pitches are better this time. I am not ready to blame [the pitches] because it's not too easy under these conditions where you do not get enough sunlight to keep the pitches well. You can still score runs here but I don't think the batsmen could capitalise on it,” he observed.