The long wait is over. Mashrafe bin Murtaza was ruled out of the eighth edition of the Bangladesh Premier League due to injury. Today (Tuesday) Mashrafe’s name is in the XI of the fourth match of his team Minister Dhaka. Mashrafe last played cricket on December 18, 2020. He did not play any match in 2021. After 402 days he returned with BPL.
However, in the return match, Mashrafe was able to contribute with his tight bowling and picked up two wickets though his team could not win the match. Batting first against the Sylhet Sixers, captain Mahmudullah Riyadh’s team got only 100 runs on the scoreboard. Sylhet did not face any problem to skip this run. Mosaddek Hossain Saikat’s team won by 6 wickets with 18 balls to spare and lost only 3 wickets. Sylhet picked up their first win in the tournament.
Sylhet’s two openers Lendon Simmons and Anamul Haque Bijoy started the innings carefully by answering for 101 runs. By adding 21 runs in the opening partnership, Simmons fell victim to Mashrafe in the fourth over of the innings. He returned with 16 runs. Then Mohammad Mithun came to the crease with Bijoy. Sylhet got the foundation of victory in their effective partnership of 36 runs between Mithun and Bijoy.
When Mithun was dismissed for 17 runs, Bijoy was leading the team towards the rest of the victory with Colin Ingram. However, he was out for 45 runs to stay 2 runs away from victory. The 45-ball innings consisted of 4 fours and 1 six. After losing 3 wickets, Sylhet won by 7 wickets with 18 balls in hand. Where Ingram remained unbeaten on 21 runs. In the return match, Mashrafe took 2 wickets for 21 runs in 4 overs.
Earlier, after winning the toss, Sylhet invited Dhaka to bat first. The bowlers brought success to the team at the beginning of the innings. Dhaka lost 3 batsmen to score 22 runs in 6 overs of power play. Mohammad Shahzad (5 off 7 balls), Tamim Iqbal (3 off 5 balls) and Jahrul Islam (4 off 10 balls) left before returning to the dressing room.
Naim Sheikh and captain Mahmudullah Riyad took the helm for the fourth wicket. They added 40 runs off 41 balls in slow batting. Naim, who was batting in a Test mood, broke the tie when he was dismissed for 15 off 30 balls at a 50 strike rate. Dhaka lost 5 wickets for 57 runs when Andre Russell was dismissed for zero in the same over. Although both decisions were controversial.
Later, when Riyadh’s 33-run innings from 26 balls stopped in 3 fours, it became difficult for Dhaka to reach the quota of 100 runs. In the end, Dhaka scored three figures in the innings of 21 runs from 16 balls of Shuvagata Hom and 12 runs from 6 balls of Rubel Hossain. With 8 balls left in the innings, the team was all out for 100 runs. Apu from Sylhet met the best figure of his career on this day, he took 4 wickets with only 16 runs.