Comilla Victorians won their second consecutive BPL championship by successfully completing a difficult 176-run chase. Johnson Charles and Litton Das each scored fifty runs as Victorians defeated Sylhet Strikers by seven wickets with four balls remaining.
It was the cherry on top of an 11-match winning streak for the Victorians, who had dropped their first three games of the competition.
Coach of the Victorians Mohammad Salahuddin, who is quickly becoming a legend in Bangladesh, won his fourth championship with the team. The Victorians struggled in the field, but their all-star batting order helped them win.
After defeating Rangpur Riders in the second qualifier, Strikers became deserving finalists as well. They scored 175 with beautiful 50s from Mushfiqur Rahim and Najmul Hossain Shanto.
After an overthrow from Mukidul Islam, who attempted to run the non-striker Hridoy out, Shanto and Towhid Hridoy scored four runs off the first ball of the game.
Before Tanvir Islam’s overthrow off the last delivery of the over gave Strikers five runs, Shanto hit back-to-back fours two balls later. Tanvir then dismissed Hridoy with the first ball of the second over, as if all of this weren’t enough.
Mashrafe Mortaza, the captain of the Strikers, moved up to No. 3 for the third straight game, and the change now seems less unexpected.
He was however easily defeated by Andre Russell as Strikers failed to fully capitalize on a promising beginning. Sunil Narine’s error at short third in the fourth over, which gave Shanto four runs, added to the mess created by the Victorians.
Only three batters for the Strikers reached double digits. They featured strikes from Mushfiqur and Shanto of 74* and 64, respectively. Shanto achieved this record, becoming the first Bangladeshi player to accumulate 500 runs in a BPL season.
With the chaos at the other end, Shanto gave the attack some initial momentum by shooting the ball cleanly beyond the 30-yard line while the team was on the power play.
Before Moeen Ali bowled him, he and Mushfiqur scored 79 runs for the third wicket. But, Mushfiqur fought and scored an unbroken 74, hitting Russell for a superb six in the final over, his third of the innings.
In addition to misfields and overthrows, the Victorians fielders missed up to six catches. Two of those were missed by Mustafizur Rahman, the first of which was a difficult one at short fine leg when Shanto was on 29. But Ryan Burl’s second, when the batsman was on 1, was a howler. He missed a straightforward skier so badly that the ball almost hit him in the head.
Imrul Kayes also mishandled a straightforward catch at midwicket when he dropped Shanto for a score of 37. Afterwards, George Linde was dropped by Moeen and Litton on consecutive balls at long-on and long-off, respectively.
However, Litton Das ultimately made the catch to remove Linde for 9 in the 18th over. Litton caught Mushfiqur on the final delivery of the innings and under-armed the ball back towards the pitch before realising that it was actually a free hit. This was followed by another mental slip.
Litton gave the Victorians the rapid start they needed by opening the batting in the run chase, especially when their pinch-hitter Narine was out in the third over. On the leg side, Litton used aggression with quick touches through openings on the off side.
After missing the ball a pull, Litton hit 55 off 39 balls, including seven fours and a six, before being caught by Shanto, who raced and dove forward from deep backward square leg.
He finished the season with 379 runs, the most by a Victorians batter, and that was his third fifty of the year. He warmed up in style before his maiden IPL stint with Kolkata Knight Riders.