Chittagong Kings started with a loss in BPL. They avenged that loss against Khulna Tigers at home. The Chittagong franchise scored two hundred runs on the scoreboard for the third time in this tournament with Graham Clarke's storming century on Thursday. Earlier, Chittagong lost the target of 204 runs given by Khulna, this time they defeated Mehdi Hasan Miraj's team by 45 runs with a target of 201 runs.
Chittagong rose to second place with 8 points after their fourth consecutive win in five matches. In the first match of the day, Fortune Barisal, which was number two, dropped to number three after defeating Dhaka Capital. The defending champions have played one match more and have equal points. Both Chittagong and Barisal are 6 points behind Rangpur Riders (14) who are at the top of the table. Khulna had a great start in BPL by winning two matches in a row, they lost four matches in a row. They are fourth with four points from six matches.
Chittagong got invited to bat after losing the toss at Zahoor Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong. They scored 200 runs for 7 wickets on Clarke's century. In response, Khulna kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Playing for a big target, they lost 5 batsmen before the score reached 100.
Maximum 37 runs came from the bat of Darwish Rasool. Apart from this, Mohammad Nawaz (25), Afif Hossain (20) and Mahidul Islam (18) played important roles.
Mahfuzur Rahman Rabbi, the captain of last season's U-19 team, made his BPL debut for Khulna on this day. But the all-rounder has also disappointed with the bat after failing with the ball in the beginning. He will want to forget the debut day of BPL. He scored 2 runs after costing 27 runs with four sixes in one over. Khulna stopped at 155 after losing 9 wickets.
Among the Chittagong bowlers, Arafat Sunny took three wickets for 25 runs. Besides, Shariful Islam and Khaled Ahmed took two wickets each.
Chittagong did not start well. They lost the wicket of Usman Khan in the beginning. After that, Parvez Hossain Emon and Clark made a record partnership of 128 runs for the team in the second wicket. Parvez scored 39 runs with four sixes from 29 balls and broke the pair to get out. Despite losing his partner, Clarke continued to bat brilliantly. However, this batsman took the way to Sajghar after scoring 48-ball centuries. He scored 101 runs off 50 balls with 7 fours and 6 sixes. England's right-handed batsman was also the man of the match.
Mohammad Newaz and Salman Irshad took three wickets each for Khulna. Besides, Abu Haider took a wicket.
Clarke's second T20 century set a record this year's BPL. After 2019, maximum six centuries were seen jointly in one event.
