11.11pm That's all from Sylhet today. Hope you enjoyed ESPNcricinfo's coverage of the double header. The BPL kicked off today, and we will be by your side for the next month or so as the tournament progresses. On behalf of Shashank Kishore, this is Sreshth Shah signing off. Bye bye!
The Man of the Match is Ravi Bopara. He says: "You need a bit of luck (on the dropped catches), especially with the high-risk shots you play. Good start for the team and on a personal note. Nice to play at a new venue, otherwise we usually play all year in Dhaka."
Mashrafe Mortaza, the winning captain. He says: "Hopefully we carry on with this momentum. Mithun is one of our key batsman, and despite the early wickets, they took the pressure away from us and onto our opponents. And finally Bopara. I would like to say sorry to Darren actually, that my coin toss hit the camera."
Some words from the losing captain Darren Sammy: "We'll look back at this match and we will be gutted with ourselves. Rangpur outplayed us in all three departments. Given the start we have, we didn't capitalise and lost wickets in a bunch. It was due to Mehidy that we got 150 plus. We got some early wickets too, but we weren't hungry after that. Credit to Rangpur."
11.07pm We're ready for the presentation.
Here's Shahriar Nafees. He says: "I wanted to just build a good partnership. Word from the dugout was to build the innings, so I wanted to do that. They had a couple of good left-arm spinners up front, but Mithun played brilliantly. I was just giving him company. The way I got out wasn't a good shot to play, but Bopara finished it beautifully. Sylhet is one of the most beautiful grounds in this country."
10.55pm A well-paced chase set up by Shahriar and Mithun, and followed up by Bopara and Perera. Handshakes all around but Rajshahi will regret the missed opportunities in the field. Rony Talukdar's 47 was delightful in the first innings, but no other big score only took the Kings to 154, which on this pitch, along with the excess dew, would always be a tough score to defend. We'll be back with the presentation.
END OF OVER:18 | 12 Runs | RAR: 145/4 (10 runs required from 12 balls, RR: 8.05, RRR: 5.00)
- Thisara Perera16 (10b)
- Ravi Bopara33 (20b)
- James Franklin3-0-26-1
- Kesrick Williams3-0-30-1
END OF OVER:17 | 16 Runs | RAR: 133/4 (22 runs required from 18 balls, RR: 7.82, RRR: 7.33)
- Ravi Bopara32 (19b)
- Thisara Perera5 (5b)
- Kesrick Williams3-0-30-1
- James Franklin2-0-14-1
Yoel Rubin: "The match between NZ and India started after this game, and will finish before it" -- Hear, hear. I wonder which of these two captains will get fined for the over rate. Or if it's gonna be both.
