|| CF Correspondent ||

Sohail Tanvir’s all-round show helped Sylhet Sixers keep their hope alive as they defeated Rajshahi Kings by 76 runs in a one-sided opening match of the of Bangladesh Premier League Chittagong-leg at the Zahur Ahmed Choudhury Stadium on Friday.

Tanvir’s late cameo of 23 off 10 balls after Sylhet’s new English recruit Jason Roy had set the foundation with a 42 off 28 balls helped Sylhet reach a challenging score of 180-6 to earn their third victory in the sixth edition of BPL and it also helped their hope alive in the tournament.

In reply, Fazle Mahmud played a lone battle with the bat for Rajshahi, scoring 50 off 41 balls as rest of the Rajshahi batsmen failed to put up any substantial score as Rajshahi were bowled out for 104 in 18.2 overs.

Tanvir, who finished with 3-17, removed the tournament’s only centurion Laurie Evans for one in the last ball of the first over to leave a serious dent in Rajshahi’s chances of chasing down the total.

‘’We decided to go with the local captain today and that worked. I always believed if you start well in the powerplay team has a good chance of winning the match. There is a slim chance for us but still there is hope for us in the tournament and that is keeping us alive,’’ said Sohail, who led the team in the last game while did not get the chance against Kings as Alok was made the skipper ahead of the game.

Fazle held one end up but Rajshahi lost Mominul Haque (five), Ryan ten Doeschate (12) and Zakir Hasan (17) to be reduced to 81-4 in 13.1 overs.

Fazle, trying to keep up with the required rate, attempted to take on Mohammad Nawaz in the 14th over but ended up top edging and giving a simple catch to Alok Kapali.

Nawaz, who finished with 3-22, then trapped Christiaan Jonker for a leg-before in the next delivery and then dismissed skipper Mehedi Hasan in the fifth ball of the over to reduce Rajshahi to 90-7.

Rajshahi managed 14 runs for the last three wickets before Kapali dismissed Kamrul Islam (two) to end Rajshahi’s innings.

The BPL opener also witnessed power disruption for 43 minutes but it did not halted the progress of the game.

‘’We could not bat well. We have lost 2 back to back matches now. We have three matches left and we would want to work hard. Hopefully, in the next match we will come back strongly,’’ said Kings skipper Mehedy Miraz.