Captain Shakib Al Hasan’s unbeaten 81 off 45 balls pushed Fortune Barishal to 177-6 against Comilla Victorians in an otherwise lacklustre batting performance at the Zakir Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram on Saturday.
Shakib smashed eight fours and four sixes in his brisk innings, while none of the other Barishal batters could get into the 30s.
Left-arm spinner Tanvir Islam was Comilla’s star performer with the ball, claiming 4-33 in his four overs.
Earlier, the match at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium began in a somewhat dramatic manner, with Pakistani wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan getting flown in by his franchise on a helicopter from Dhaka with less than an hour to go before the match.
Sent to bat, Barishal got off to a decent start, thanks to Chaturanga de Silva’s quickfire 21 off 12 balls.
Shakib came to the middle after Chaturanga’s dismissal in the last ball of the powerplay.
The left-hander was first accompanied by Anamul Haque (20 off 20 balls) and then formed a 50-run stand off 38 balls with Ibrahim Zadran (27 off 20 balls) for the fourth wicket.
In the final overs, when Barishal would’ve hoped for their batsmen to fire from both ends. But while Shakib was smashing boundaries at one end and rotating the strike at will wickets fell in regular succession at the other end.
In the end, Shakib’s innings and an unbeaten 10 off five balls from the bat of Karim Janat took Barishal to a competitive score.