Dhaka – Thisara Perera hit an explosive 74 off 26 balls with three fours and eight sixes to propel Comilla Victorians to 184/5 against Chittagong Vikings on Sunday evening at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in their fourth match of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL).Thisara joined the Victorians just this morning and took the field. He added 98 runs along with Mohammad Saifuddin in the sixth wicket stand off 40 balls to post a challenging total of 185 runs.
Chittagong Vikings won the toss and decided to bowl first. Their decision seemed to be a right one until Saifuddin and Perera stood up in the sixth wicket stand.
The Victorians lost their star batsman Tamim Iqbal without posting a single run on the board. Tamim got dismissed by a Robbie Frylinck delivery podding a catch to the wicketkeeper.
In the second wicket stand, Anamul Haque and Evin Lewis added 21 runs. Anamul managed 10 off 10 before falling to Abu Jayed Rahi. Imrul Kayes came into the middle and spread some hopes scoring 24 off 21 balls. But he failed to maintain his good start.
After the dismissal of Imrul Kayes, Comilla suffered an abrupt blow when Evin Lewis was stretchered out due to a leg injury. He scored 38 runs off 34 balls with six fours.
Comilla lost five wickets in 86 runs in 13.2 overs. And right after that, Saifuddin and Perera made that unbelievable stand of 98 runs.
Perera completed his fifty in 20 balls. After hitting the fifty, he attacked Robbie Frylinck in the 19th over to hit 30 runs with four sixes and one four.
He remained unbeaten on 74 and Saifuddin companied him with another unbeaten innings of 26 off 19 balls.Khaled Ahmed, the right-arm pacer of Bangladesh, took three wickets for the Vikings while Robbie Frylinck and Abu Jayed Rahi took one wicket each.UNB
