Soumya Sarkar hogged the headlines to became the first Bangladeshi player to hit a double century in List A cricket, enabling Abahani to retain the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) title in an overwhelming manner to crush Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club by nine wickets with incredible ease at BKSP-3 ground on Tuesday.
It turned out to be title deciding round of DPL, Sheikh Jamal racked up a gigantic 317-9 in 50 overs but Soumya made a mockery of a big target, allowing Abahani to stroll to their massive chase by scoring 319-1 in just 47.12 overs.
Soumya was in no mood to flirt as he lashed on to the Jamal bowlers in ruthless manner smashing 208 off 153, clobbering 14 well times boundaries and 16 gigantic sixes. He butchered Jamal bowlers to the every corner of the park.0
To the glee of the Abahani supporters, quite rightly in befitting manner Souyma danced down the track to finish off the match with his 16th six on the proceeding over long-on region to complete a sheer annihilation on Jamal. His 16 sixes in a match in senior level cricket is also a Bangladeshi record.
Mohammedan’s Raqibul Hasan was the holder of Bangladesh’s highest individual innings with 190 against Abahani in 2017 DPL at the same venue before Soumya rewrote the record.
It was also Soumya’s second DPL ton in a row, having blasted 79 ball-106 runs against Legends of Rupganj in the previous match to keep Abahani’s title hopes alive. He silenced his critics with his bat by slamming these two centuries when his team needed most.
He and Jahurul Islam Omee who was out on exact 100, hitting his third century in the league, shared 312 runs in a record opening stand to make the contest an extremely and surprisingly one-sided affair.
It was Abahani’s 20th DPL title which retained their status as the most successful domestic cricket team in Bangladesh. Abahani indeed lifted the title thrice in the last four seasons.
Since the DPL gets List A status six years back, Abahani clinched the highest three times also.
Electing to bat first, Sheikh Jamal rode on Tanbir Hyder’s 115 ball-132 runs to throw a stiff challenge to Abahani. Elias Sunny scored 45 while Mehrab Hossain added 44 for Jamal.
Mashrafe Bin Mortaza was the highest wicket-taker of Abahani with 4-56.
Starting the super league with four points adrift of Legends of Rupganj, Abahani won five matches in a row to ensure their reputation of hot favourite tag.
