Amir closes out one-run win for Chittagong

DHAKA: Drama at the start and drama right at the end. Chittagong Vikings won the game by one run as Sylhet Superstars captain Mushfiqur Rahim failed to take three off Mohammad Amir’s last ball.
In the last over, with Sylhet requiring nine runs to win, Mushfiqur tried a scoop off the first ball but didn’t connect well and could only take a single. Ajantha Mendis missed the next two balls, before the batsmen ran a bye to the wicketkeeper - although Chittagong appealed unsuccessfully for obstructing the field.
Needing seven off two, Mushfiqur blasted the fifth ball to the cover boundary, but couldn’t do so again, as Chittagong captain Tamim Iqbal fielded in the covers. The game ended on a high after it had started with an embarrassing controversy for the tournament.
The match started an hour and ten minutes late after Sylhet tried to field two foreign players, Ravi Bopara and Josh Cobb, who did not have the required No-Objection Certificates (NOCs) at the time of the toss. Although the NOCs were subsequently provided, and Sylhet tried to include both English players, Chittagong refused to take the field because Bopara and Cobb weren’t named in the original XI.
The game, once it had begun, was another cracker. After Chittagong had posted 180 for 5, with half-centuries for Tamim and Yasir Ali, Sylhet were quickly out of the blocks in their reply.
Dilshan Munaweera took revenge for the pasting he took with the ball by laying into Tillakaratne Dilshan’s first over, striking six consecutive fours. The first was flicked over square leg; the next over fine leg; then driving uppishly over long-off, and slog-sweeping over midwicket, which was dropped by Jeevan Mendis; then sweeping and driving through mid-off the next two balls.
He reached 50 off just 22 balls but there was nothing at the other end. Junaid Siddique was bowled by Shafiul Islam in the seventh over and his contribution to the 66-run stand was just five runs. Munaweera fell for 64 by giving midwicket an easy catch. He had struck 13 fours and a six in his 30-ball knock.
Mominul Haque was out a ball later, leg-before to Saeed Ajmal in his attempt to play the reverse-hit. From 76 for 3 in the eighth over, Mushfiqur and Nurul Hasan played out four overs quietly before the latter launched into Taskin Ahmed in the 13th - slapping him over long-off for a six, smashing him over cover and swinging one that ended up in the third-man boundary where Ziaur Rahman made a hash of it.
Nurul and Mushfiqur added 55 together and get Sylhet within striking distance. But Nurul, Nazmul Hossain Milon and Mohammad Shahid got out within a short time, leaving 21 needed off the last two overs.
After his defiant stance when Sylhet tried to sneak in two unauthorised players, Tamim then launched into their bowlers. He blasted six fours and four sixes in his 45-ball 69 despite the loss of Dilshan, in the second over of the game, for a golden duck.
Tamim started with a six over square leg off Subashis Roy before hitting four fours in a Munaweera over that went for 20 runs. In the ninth and tenth overs, Tamim struck a four and three sixes, two over long-on and one over cover.