Player of the Match
Player of the Match

11.11pm That's all from Sylhet today. Hope you enjoyed ESPNcricinfo's coverage of the double header. The BPL kicked off today, and we will be by your side for the next month or so as the tournament progresses. On behalf of Shashank Kishore, this is Sreshth Shah signing off. Bye bye!

The Man of the Match is Ravi Bopara. He says: "You need a bit of luck (on the dropped catches), especially with the high-risk shots you play. Good start for the team and on a personal note. Nice to play at a new venue, otherwise we usually play all year in Dhaka."

Mashrafe Mortaza, the winning captain. He says: "Hopefully we carry on with this momentum. Mithun is one of our key batsman, and despite the early wickets, they took the pressure away from us and onto our opponents. And finally Bopara. I would like to say sorry to Darren actually, that my coin toss hit the camera."

Some words from the losing captain Darren Sammy: "We'll look back at this match and we will be gutted with ourselves. Rangpur outplayed us in all three departments. Given the start we have, we didn't capitalise and lost wickets in a bunch. It was due to Mehidy that we got 150 plus. We got some early wickets too, but we weren't hungry after that. Credit to Rangpur."

11.07pm We're ready for the presentation.

Here's Shahriar Nafees. He says: "I wanted to just build a good partnership. Word from the dugout was to build the innings, so I wanted to do that. They had a couple of good left-arm spinners up front, but Mithun played brilliantly. I was just giving him company. The way I got out wasn't a good shot to play, but Bopara finished it beautifully. Sylhet is one of the most beautiful grounds in this country."

10.55pm A well-paced chase set up by Shahriar and Mithun, and followed up by Bopara and Perera. Handshakes all around but Rajshahi will regret the missed opportunities in the field. Rony Talukdar's 47 was delightful in the first innings, but no other big score only took the Kings to 154, which on this pitch, along with the excess dew, would always be a tough score to defend. We'll be back with the presentation.

18.5
1
Farhad Reza to Perera, 1 run, and it's all over! It's a skyer that midwicket looks to get under, but makes a mess of it trying to run backwards. Misses the catch, and allows the batsmen to take the winning runs. Rangpur Riders win by six wickets
18.4
1
Farhad Reza to Bopara, 1 run, full on off stump, tapped off the front foot to long on. Scores are level
18.3
3
Farhad Reza to Perera, 3 runs, wide outside off, splices it off the bottom of his pat, whizzes past point. Allows the batsmen to take more runs
18.2
1
Farhad Reza to Bopara, 1 run, good length on middle, tucked behind square to short fine leg for a quick run. They need five more
18.1
4
Farhad Reza to Bopara, FOUR, short on off and pulled furiously past deep midwicket. Stand-and-deliver stuff from Bopara

END OF OVER:
18 | 12 Runs | RR: 145/4 (10 runs required from 12 balls, RR: 8.05, RRR: 5.00)

  • Thisara Perera16 (10b)
  • Ravi Bopara33 (20b)
  • James Franklin3-0-26-1
  • Kesrick Williams3-0-30-1
17.6
0
Franklin to Perera, no run, slower ball full outside off, Perera leaves it thinking it'll be a wide. It's not to be
17.5
2
Franklin to Perera, 2 runs, short on off stump, doesn't take the bounce as expected, bunted down the ground to long on. Perera calls for the two, and they get it
17.4
4
Franklin to Perera, FOUR, muscled away! Sent past cow corner, for four more, It was a good-length ball on off and middle and Perera used all the strength he had to heave this in front of square on the leg side
17.3
1
Franklin to Bopara, 1 run, full on off, carved sqaure off the front foot to the sweeper-fielder on the off side
17.2
1
Franklin to Perera, 1 run, good length on off stump, muscled to deep midwicket
17.1
4
Franklin to Perera, FOUR, dropped! But what's worse is that it goes for four. It was full outside off and the batsman looks to heave this over the leg side, it's a sliced shot, and it's going straight under long off's throat, but the horror - Samit Patel makes a mess of it

END OF OVER:
17 | 16 Runs | RR: 133/4 (22 runs required from 18 balls, RR: 7.82, RRR: 7.33)

  • Ravi Bopara32 (19b)
  • Thisara Perera5 (5b)
  • Kesrick Williams3-0-30-1
  • James Franklin2-0-14-1
16.6
2
Williams to Bopara, 2 runs, good length on middle, tucked towards short leg and they scamper through for the run. Making full use of the gaps in the infield on the leg side
16.5
4
Williams to Bopara, FOUR, full on leg, gets the deftest of touches as the ball goes down the leg side. The keeper has no chance, and neither does short fine leg. Very useful runs. Delicately played
16.4
1
Williams to Perera, 1 run, short on off stump, waits for it and pokes it past point for two more

Yoel Rubin: "The match between NZ and India started after this game, and will finish before it" -- Hear, hear. I wonder which of these two captains will get fined for the over rate. Or if it's gonna be both.

16.3
2
Williams to Perera, 2 runs, full and wide outside off stump, reaches for it and gets the bat's bottom edge, dribbles away to cover
16.2
0
Williams to Perera, no run, slower ball outside leg, can't flick it to the leg side
16.2
2w
Williams to Bopara, 2 wides, goes down the leg side again, and this time they can take an extra run as well, good length on middle but the angle takes it down

Rangpur 2nd innings Partnerships

WktRunsPlayers
1st1A LythJ Charles
2nd14Mohammad MithunJ Charles
3rd75Shahriar NafeesMohammad Mithun
4th23RS BoparaShahriar Nafees
5th42RS BoparaNLTC Perera

Bangladesh Premier League

TeamMWLPTNRR
CV1293180.578
DHD1274151.631
KT1274150.075
RR126612-0.267
SYS12479-0.429
RR12488-1.098
CC12387-0.473
BB00000