Farhad Reza made some amendments for his earlier mistake to play small cameo of 6-ball 18, guiding Rangpur Riders to a crucial four-wicket win over Sylhet Sixers in their Bangladesh Premier League match in Sylhet on Friday.
Rangpur, who won just two of their previous six matches, staring at another defeat when Farhad came to the crease with 24 needed from the last two overs, replying to Sylhet’s tournament highest 194-4.
No one gave Rangpur a chance when Farhad joined skipper Mashrafee bin Murtaza in the penultimate over knowing the history of the right-hander, who let the team down against Rajshahi Kings being unable to connect four consecutive balls of Mustafizur Rahman in the final over.
But Farhad and Mashrafee this time took 19 runs from the 19th over, bowled by rookie left-arm pacer Mehedi Hasan, with Farhad leading the charge.
Farhad hit a six over long on in the last ball of the over to bring the equation down to five runs from the last six balls. He finished the game with straight dive off Alok Kapali to take Sylhet 195-6, which also completed his redemption.
The small innings made Farhad an unlikely hero in a game, which had seen plenty of actions otherwise with Sabbir Rahman hitting 85 off 51 balls to power Sylhet to a record score before Rilee Rossouw and AB de Villiers took the game close for Rangpur.
Taskin Ahmed seemed to have sealed the contest for Sylhet with his 4-42, including a two-wicket burst in his final over, but Farhad and Mashrafee, the latter unbeaten one five, ensured Rangpur got a lifeline to survive in the tournament.
Rangpur had Sylhet wicketkeeper Jaker Ali to thank after he had dropped Rossouw on one off Taskin in the second over and South African made his life count by hitting 61 off 35 balls, his fourth fifty in the tournament that took his tally to 349 runs.
De Villiers joined Rossouw after second wicket fell for 63 runs and lived upto the hype smashing a typically aggressive innings of 34 off 21 balls with two fours and as many sixes.
Taskin removed both Rossouw and De Villiers in the same over to give Sylhet the edge but Mohammad Mithun (14 off 10 balls) and Nahidul Islam (19 off 16 balls) played two important knock to keep Rangpur afloat.
In the first innings of the game, it was, however, mostly Sabbir show as the out-of-favour Bangladesh batsman finally displayed what he was capable of by smashing five fours and six sixes in the highest individual knock of the tournament.
Nicholas Pooran gave him a brilliant support at the end of the innings plundering 47 off 21 balls to take Sylhet close to 200-run but it came inadequate against a side highly charged up with their back firmly on the wall.
