Duronto Rajshahi opener Junaid Siddique played an astonishing innings to make an imposing Barisal Burners total appear nothing more than modest as Rajshahi won their fifth match in a row by nine wickets to take top position in the BPL T20 leader board.
Chasing a formidable 193 to win, Rajshahi got off to an electric start with their openers Junaid and Shahzaib Hasan blasting sixteen runs each off the first three overs bowled by Yasir Arafat, Farhad Hossain and Al-Amin Hossain. Both openers were in belligerent mood as they seemed to be trying to outdo each other, hitting seven fours and two sixes in the first three overs alone.
By the end of the Powerplay, Rajshahi had blasted their way to 84 for no loss. Shahzaib’s fall in the seventh over to Ahmed Shehzad with the score on 93 did not produce the desired effect for the Burners as in walked Marlon Samuels to carry on from where Shahzaib left off. Soon after, Junaid reached his fifty from only 23 deliveries, and he and Samuels then progressed uninhibited to put on an unbeaten 100-run partnership in only 10.3 overs, winning the match with 17 balls to spare.
Samuels scored an aggressive 30-ball 54 with four boundaries and three towering sixes, but the hero of the show was Junaid Siddique, who finished unbeaten on 89 off 51 balls, an innings studded with seven crisply timed boundaries and five huge sixes. Farhad Hossain came in for particularly harsh treatment, leaking 35 runs in his two overs.
Earlier, a brilliant unbeaten 88 from Phil Mustard carried Rajshahi to a strong 192 for three against . Winning the toss and batting first, Barisal lost their captain Brad Hodge in the first over to a brilliant catch by Rajshahi captain and wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim, who grabbed the edge one-handed off Mohammad Sami’s bowling in front of first slip. Then Mustard came in and built a 97-run partnership with opener Ahmed Shehzad, who hit a 33-ball 44 with two fours and three sixes.
After the partnership was broken, Mustard kicked on in the company of Mithun Ali, who scored 21 off twelve balls with two sixes, before finishing the innings off with Rameez Raja Jr who scored a 15-ball 26 with the help of four fours. Mustard hit ten boundaries and three sixes in his crucial knock. Only Monir Hossain among the Rajshahi bowlers was spared the punishment conceding only 19 runs off his four wickets for the wicket of Mithun.
Junaid was adjudged man-of-the-match for his unbeaten 88.
