Moeen Ali’s 75 and two-for leads Comilla to victory

Khulna Tigers’ hopes of staying alive in the BPL takes a beating

Comilla Victorians 188 for 6 (Moeen 75, Litton 41, Perera 2-28) beat Khulna Tigers 123 (Sarkar 22, Rony 3-19, Mustafizur 2-16) by 62 runs

How the match played out

Khulna couldn’t match Comilla with the bat, losing half their side in the first ten overs, and being bowled out in 19.3. Now they have to beat Comilla on Saturday to stay alive in the tournament. But even then, there’s a chance that net run rate comes into play if Chattogram Challengers beat Sylhet Sunrisers in the first match tomorrow.

Moeen struck nine sixes, the most in an innings during this year’s BPL, in his first half-century of the tournament. It was also the second-most sixes Moeen struck in a T20 since his unbeaten 121 against Sussex in 2019. That innings contained 11 sixes.

Big hit

From the 13th over onwards, Moeen struck the ball cleanly down the ground. He struck seven of his nine sixes in the arc between midwicket and wide long-off. He whipped two sixes over backward square leg, and his only four was a straight hit off Thisara Perera. Moeen struck three sixes off Mahedi Hasan and Soumya Sarkar, taking apart Khulna’s fifth bowling option.

Big miss

Mushfiqur’s on-field behaviour once again got a lot of attention after an incident in this game. Following Litton’s dismissal, Mushfiqur shoved aside Khaled Ahmed when the young fast bowler tried to hug him. This could have been because Khaled had dropped Litton when he was on 32.