Chittagong Challengers ensured the playoffs by playing good cricket in the entire BPL. The chance to make the tournament even more colorful was in front of the lucky home team. But they had to leave after losing to Fortune Barisal in the eliminator on Monday. Mainly due to batting failure, they could not score enough runs on the scoreboard. That made the match easy for Tamim Iqbal. Chittagong won easily by 7 wickets with Tamim’s batting and Kyle Myers’ all rounding skills.
Although Chittagong could not score runs, Barisal stormed on the same wicket. Tamim-Myers made a pair of 98 runs from 54 balls this day. They won an easy match in this pair. But nobody from Chittagong’s top to middle order or native to foreigner could open their hands to play. The party has to pay the price. Josh Brown (34) and Shubhagatar (24) put up a collection of 135 runs for Chittagong.
Chittagong captain Shubhagat thinks that the batters could not take advantage of the opportunity at the right time. At the press conference after the match, he said, ‘Before the toss, I saw that the wicket was very good and solid. We could not use it that way. Our top order was unable to utilize the power plate. We also lost some wickets. It’s disappointing for us, we couldn’t put up a good collection.’
At the tail end, Chittagong’s XI lacked specialist batsmen but had several all-rounders. But they also could not play a positive role. The injuries of Tom Bruce and pacer Shahidul Islam have affected the whole team. Fortunately, we had an all-rounder as a batter. Shepherd was ours, maybe we couldn’t use it that way. Our injuries were a fact. Tom Bruce had a shoulder injury. That’s why he couldn’t keep. We needed a keeper there. It was there that Imranuzzaman was given a chance. Shahidul did very well throughout the tournament. Every match has brought a breakthrough. Without him, our bowling unit has (damaged) a bit.’
Shubhagat further added, ‘Even we could not bring foreigners like that because of the NOC’s (complexity) problems. If I could play cricket with a little more calculation, maybe something would have been better.’
Shubhagat is not disappointed even if he could not go to the second qualifier. Satisfied with their performance in the entire tournament, this captain of Chittagong said, ‘This year’s team is much more organized than last year. Everyone who played tried to give their best this year. Our team bonding was good. Maybe there weren’t too many famous players. But because we have a good understanding, the result has come in our favor.’
Meanwhile, Chittagong opener Tanjid Hasan Tamim batted rhythmically with the bat. This left-handed batsman is number two in the list with 384 runs. Shubhagat is very happy with his performance, ‘batted very well. Maybe he couldn’t match himself that way in the beginning. As the days passed, it matched itself. Contribution was to the team. His contribution in the top order was good. May not be able to contribute like that today. I would like him to perform like this.’
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