After a long winning streak, the Sylhet Strikers lose their first match in the 2023 BPL. It was in the 16th match of the tournament on Thursday that the team lost against the Comilla Victorians by 5 wickets with 6 balls left.
It was an unexpected victory, given the Strikers’ strong performance in the tournament so far. When the two teams last faced each other on January 9, the Strikers had won by 5 wickets with 14 balls left.
The Victorians’ victory is largely thanks to a half-century by Litton Das. The team’s bowlers, however, were also amazing players in the match, having dismissed a total of 6 batsmen.
The Comilla Victorians had won the toss and opted to bowl. All bowlers gave a great performance with a consistent amount of over 20 runs conceded in four overs.
Compared to the bowlers’ performance, the batters were not as strong. Though Litton Das struck 70 runs, he was the only one to hit a run score above 18 runs. After Das’ half-century, the highest score that the team managed to get was 18 runs by Imrul Kayes and Johnson Charles.
For the Strikers, it was the opposite. The team only managed a total of three wickets taken with Mashrafe Mortaza taking 2 wickets while Sharifullah took 1. When the team went up to bat, they managed to turn things around thanks to Imad Wasim and Thisara Perera.
Thisara Perera was the top scorer for the Strikers. He struck 43 runs off just 31 deliveries. Imad Wasim, meanwhile, scored 40 runs off 33 deliveries. Other than these two, however, the Strikers were unable to score over 16 runs.
At the end of their innings, the Strikers had a total of 133/7. Thanks to the effort of their bowlers and Das’ half-century hit, the Victorians ended with a total of 134/5.
Before this victory, the Comilla Victorians had only won once in the 2023 tournament. This was when they went against the Chattogram Challengers on Monday. It was the 14th match of the tournament and the Victorians had won by 6 wickets with 15 balls left.
The Sylhet Strikers, meanwhile, had a match against the Minister Group Dhaka on the same day and won by 5 wickets with 4 balls left.
After this match, the Comilla Victorians will be playing against the Dhaka Dominators on January 19. This match will be the first time the two teams will play against each other in the tournament, so there is no telling how the game will go.
The Sylhet Strikers, on the other hand, will have their next match on January 24 against the Fortune Barishels. The last time the two played against each other was in the 4th match of the tournament on January 7. The Strikers had won by 6 wickets with 6 balls left.
While the Strikers may have lost this match, they remain number 1 in the tournament standings with 10 points and a net run rate of +1.332. As for the Comilla Victorians, they have 4 points and are 4th in the rankings.