Prime Bank beat Abahani, reached into DPL T20 semis
Prime Bank vs Abahani Limited. -Cricfrenzy
||Desk report||
Prime Bank Cricket Club reached the semi-final in the ongoing Dhaka Premier League Twenty20 tournament as they defeated Abahani Limited by 49 runs at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday.
Little-known opener Rubel Mia scored a brilliant half-century as Prime Bank posted 176-6 and later Abahani was restricted to 127-7 as they failed to break free against a disciplined bowling effort led by Mohor Sheikh, who took three wickets to script their downfall.
Anamul and Rubel set the platform for a competitive total as the openers put on 67 runs for their opening stand before the latter was removed scoring a brisk 22-ball 37 runs.
Rubel, who made his debut with the DPL, looked firm to grab the opportunity as he made a mockery of the Abahani bowling with his attacking brand of cricket, making 76 runs with the help of seven boundaries and four over boundaries.
Batsman Al Amin Hossain and Ariful Haque played a cameo, in the end, making 20 and 21 runs respectively that looked too hot for the opponent to handle.
Abahani never got into any sort of groove since they came down to chase the total since the likes of Sabbir Rahman, Nazmul Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain and Mohammad Saifuddin fell cheaply.
Pacer Rubel Hossain struck a 23-ball 36 but it was not enough to pose a realistic threat to Prime Bank’s score as they went through to the next round.
Alok Kapali continued his good showing from the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) with the ball, picking up three wickets while Mohor Sheikh and Al Amin bagged three and two wickets respectively for Prime Bank.
“I think the turning point was our scoring runs in the middle overs because we did not get enough runs in the middle overs. But we picked quite a few runs down the order and that changed the momentum of the game,’’ Prime Bank skipper Anamul Haque told reporters after the match.
“We have a slogan- winning is not important, winning is not everything, an effort is everything. We just concentrated on putting up an effort as we know the result will follow automatically if we can do it,’’ he said.
Abahani skipper Mossadek Hossain said that they were not disheartened to lose the game that also stopped their campaign from the tournament as they were taking it as practice purpose.
“If practice is concerned we had good practice in the middle. Most of our cricketers who are expected to play did not feature here and we can say that it was sort of our B-team,’’ said Mossadek.
“We had three to four experienced players while others are comparatively new so it is difficult to do well in this kind of tournament with such outfit,’’ he said.
“Hopefully the practice will help us in the league,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, the game between Gazi Group Cricketers and Prime Dholeshar was abandoned due to bad weather and that paved way for Gazi Cricketers in the semi-final.
