Sports

Tanzid 107, Taskin four-for trump Agha 106 to give Bangladesh series

Published

1 month ago

2026/03/16

Priyan

Tanzid Hasan celebrates his maiden ODI hundred [BCB]

This was an old-fashioned classic disguised as 21st century cricket. Probably the best ODI match of the year so far, tucked away as a gilateral decider in Mirpur. Two batters, Salman Agha and Tanzid Hasan, played stellar knocks while everyone else struggled on a pockmarked pitch. Yes, this was old-fashioned: there was the tragic Pakistan collapse, the comical Pakistan running, and the tragicomic Pakistan finish.

At the end of it all, Bangladesh won their second successive bilateral ODI series against Pakistan, the two series being 11 years apart.

Let’s start with just the last over: one wicket left, Shaheen Shah Afridi on strike, Rishad Hossain with the ball. 14 needed off six. Off the second delivery, Rishad ran back to collect a skier and spilled it at mid-on when he could have closed out the match. With 12 needed off two, a wide was given, then a sneaky review was taken by Bangladesh to reverse it. With 12 needed off the last ball, Afridi ventured down the track and missed the ball all ends up, and could have been off for a stroll by the time Litton Das remembered to whip off the stumps.

However, the match was a long way away from being a heart-stopper, and had mostly been a one-way dogfight with Bangladesh calling the shots. Then, Agha made a belated entry to the middle at 67 for 4. They were chasing 291 on a pitch that turned when you slowed it down, and bounced when you speared it in.

Taskin Ahmed was the early wrecker-in-chief for Bangladesh, taking out Sahibzada Farhan and Mohammad Rizwan in the first and third over. Maaz Sadaqat departed to an edge off Nahid Rana in the one over in between. Yet, debutant Ghazi Ghori and two-ODIs-old Abdul Samad got together to stem the bleeding: they poked and prodded, and sometimes middled one, as they laboured to a 50-run partnership in 67 balls. The highlight of their stand was at least four run-out chances, with many yes-and-no calls as nerves gave way.

Bangladesh were poor in the field themselves, with misfields and balls parried away by the close-in fielders – twice against Ghori and Samad – letting Pakistan stay in the contest for as long as they did. Ghori, in particular, rode his luck, smacking three fours and one eye-catching six into the deep-square boundary.

Ghori (29) and Samad (34) departed in quick succession. Having walked in with 224 needed off 36 overs, Agha built a case for Pakistan’s chase from one end, while Saad Masood, the other debutant of the day, kept the other end chugging along. Still, a rush of young blood was inevitable. They had put together a 79-run partnership for the sixth wicket when Masood rushed down the pitch, and Mustafizur Rahman rattled his stumps. Agha took off his gloves and helmet, and sunk to his haunches at the other end.

The pitch might as well have been laid out with Mustafizur in mind, as he kept angling balls away from the batters to finish with figures of 3 for 54. But Agha countered him – and the other pace bowlers – by mostly sticking to shots down the ground. His knock was peppered with nine fours and four sixes. This was as good a riposte as any with the bat, having been run-out in the previous game in rather unusual circumstances.

Here, he only kept the team’s needs in mind as he dug deeper in the middle with Afridi. Even when he bashed Rana down the ground in the 45th over to bring up his century, they still needed 48 off 35 balls with just three wickets left. He did not indulge in much of a celebration.

Agha and Afridi compiled 52 runs in 49 balls, but Agha was the first to depart: skying a cross-batted shot off Taskin to become his fourth and final victim of the night in the 48th over.

Afridi kept the fight going until the end, drilling two fours and two sixes in a knock of 37 off 38 and was only dismissed on the final ball.

Earlier in the day, Bangladesh had put together an old-fashioned innings of their own after being put in to bat. When Tanzid smacked Agha over the ropes in the 33rd over, he was not wearing a helmet like the batters of yesteryears. He bumped his partner’s first at the other end, performed the sajda, and wiped away his sweat on a humid day in Mirpur. He had brought up his maiden ODI ton in the most old-school way possible.

His century was only one of two Bangladesh knocks that managed to go at or over run-a-ball. But even as he hit six fours and seven sixes, most of his run-making shots were along the ground. He stitched a 105-run opening partnership alongside Saif Hassan, who looked less comfortable in his stay of 36 off 55.

Tanzid kept one end stable through the middle overs, right up till when he cut a long-hop by Abrar Ahmed to Afridi at cover in the 37th over. It was a good reward for Abrar, who was Pakistan’s best spinner, bowling with varied pace and cramping up the batters throughout the middle overs.

Haris Rauf – returning after his expensive opening spell – might have learned his lessons from Abrar too, though he had to fulfil a different job at the death overs. He plucked out Litton Das (41) and Rishad (0) in quick succession, pulling his lengths shorter to throttle Bangladesh.

Rauf finished with 3 for 52, and the only reason Bangladesh managed 290 for 5 was because of a late surge from Towhid Hridoy, who scored 48 off 44.

Still, there were two lasting images from the day: one of Tanzid, smiling in celebration after bringing up his century. The other was of Agha after his dismissal – having struck a scintillating ton of his own, but wearing the glum look of a batter walking back with the job half-done.

Brief scores:
Bangladesh 290 for 5 in 50 overs (Saif Hasan 36, Tanzid Hasan 107, Towhid Hridoy 48*; Haris Rauf 3-52) beat Pakistan 279 in 50 overs (Abdul Samad 34, Salman Ali Agha 106, Saad Masood 38, Shaheen Shah Afridi 37; Taskin Ahmed 4-49, Nahid Rana 2-62, Mustafizur Rahman 3-54 ) by 11 runs

[Cricinfo]

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Tilak ends Mumbai Indian’s losing streak with 45-ball century

Published

11 hours ago

2026/04/21

Priyan

Tilak Varma went from 19 off 22 to 101* off 45 [Cricinfo]

Mumbai Indians (MI) needed something dramatic to scrape themselves off the bottom of the table, and Tilak Varma provided that with a record-breaking hundred to lift them from 103 for 4 in 14 overs. The momentum MI built at the end of their innings was so irresistible it carried into a first-ball wicket for Jasprit Bumrah after he had gone six IPL games wicketless, and the Gujarat Titans (GT) wickets just kept tumbling, ending MI’s four-match losing streak. It was so dramatic in the end that GT ended one short of Tilak’s 101, losing by 99 runs.

The 82 runs that Tilak scored in the last six overs is the most anyone has scored in that period of an IPL innings, resulting in the joint-quickest century for MI, level with Sanath Jayasuriya’s effort in 45 balls in the inaugural IPL season. Sensationally, Tilak did so after not having hit a boundary in his first 20 balls, making this the highest IPL score after such a start.

Without taking anything away from Tilak, Naman Dhir arguably scored the tougher runs when the GT bowlers were red-hot: 45 off 32 from No. 3, when MI had slipped to 44 for 3. Tilak was offered some gifts by bowlers failing to stick to their plans, but his response to the errors was intimidating and likely resulted in further errors.

GT take the fewest risks among IPL teams when they bat. They can afford to do so because their bowlers regularly give them low scores to chase. For the second match in a row, they had their Test bowlers Mohammed Siraj and Kagiso Rabada bowl like they would in a Test match, running through the powerplay with three overs each.

Siraj was excellent with three overs for 15 runs, but the wickets went to Rabada, who was direct with his attack, bowling full, straight and fast. He ripped out Danish Malewar, Quinton de Kock and Suryakumar Yadav in this spell, the latter two with balls timed at 150 and 152kmph.

Led by Rashid Khan, GT kept the batters honest in the middle overs. Encouraged by the turn on offer for Rashid, Shubman Gill went to Washington Sundar in the 11th over. Tilak, still struggling for fluency, turned the strike over to Dhir, who took down Washington like a medium-pacer. And Washington did bowl like a medium-pacer, firing the ball at upwards of 100kmph and getting step-hit for six and four.

However, Prasidh Krishna soon got the wicket of Dhir with yet another short ball, making it 23 IPL wickets for him with short or short-of-a-length balls since the start of the 2025 season. That’s nine more than anyone. He also has the third-best economy rate off those lengths (minimum 30 balls bowled).

Which is what makes what followed all the more inexplicable. When he started the 15th over, Prasidh had the field set for the short ball, but proceeded to bowl one full ball after another. One can be a bluff, two can be errors, but four in a row is hard to explain. Tilak was ruthless, taking 16 off these balls.

Rabada came back to bring some order to proceedings, ending with figures of 4 for 33. Rashid, though, didn’t enjoy a similar end. He overpitched and underpitched the first two balls of the 17th over, and Tilak was now in an irresistible flow, hitting him for four and six.

The biggest over was the 18th, when Tilak outdid Ashok Sharma, who actually followed his plans. The first ball was a wide slower bouncer with the bigger boundary on the off side, but he still upper-cut it for a six. The second ball was hard length outside off, but he still managed to ramp it just over short fine. Now the young fast bowler begun to falter, and Varma demolished the rest of the over for 4, 4 and 6.

Siraj bowled a good 19th, getting the wicket of Hardik Pandya and ending up with figures of 4-0-25-1, but Prasidh again started the 20th over with a full ball. When he eventually went short, Tilak pulled him for a six, but only just cleared the sweeper. A high full-toss flew over long leg for a huge six, and the last ball was pulled away for four to bring up the hundred.

The last time Bumrah took a wicket in the IPL was in the Eliminator last year, incidentally against GT. He had gone six IPL matches without a wicket since then without bowling badly at all. He took the brand-new ball for the first time this season, and had a wicket first up with an unremarkable full ball, which B Sai Sudharsan sliced to cover point.

That MI’s luck was turning was evident in how Pandya got Jos Buttler lbw on umpire’s call with the ball projected to just clip the top of leg stump. Gill then played a nothing pull, neither rolling his wrists over nor trying to hit a six, to make it the first time in 21 matches that GT had lost all of their big three in the powerplay.

The powerplays cancelled each other out with GT scoring 45 for 3 to MI’s 46 for 3. Any hopes of a similar fightback to MI were dashed when Mitchell Santner took out Washington and Glenn Phillips in the same over, Washington to an excellent boundary catch by Dhir.

Ashwani Kumar was then at the receiving end of pressure-induced gifts on three occasions as GT continued to slide. Mystery spinner AM Ghazanfar wrapped up the tail with the wickets of Siraj and Rabada in the same over, making it the first time that an MI batter had outscored the entire opposition.

Brief scores:
Mumbai Indians 199 for 5 in 20 overs (Quinton de Kock 13, Tilak Varma 101*, Naman Dhir 45, Suryakumar Yadav 15, Hardik Pandya 15; Mohammed Siraj 1-25, Kagiso Rabada 3-33, Prasidh Krishna 1-54) beat Gujarat Titans 100 in 15.5 overs (Shubman Gill 14, Washington Sundar 26, M Sharukh Khan 17, Kagiso Rabada 12; Jasprit Bumrah 1-15, Hardik Pandya 1-18, Ashwani Kumar 4-24, Mitchell Santner 2-16, AM Ghazanfar 2-17) by 99 runs

[Cricinfo]

Sports

Lyceum celebrate historic promotion with dominant title triumph‎

Published

14 hours ago

2026/04/21

Thilina Walpola

Lyceum International Wattala became the first international school in the country to earn a place in the Under 19 Division I tournament

Lyceum International School, Wattala etched their name into schools cricket history with a commanding first innings victory over Taxila College, Horana to clinch the Under 19 Division II Tier ‘A’ title at Kosgama on Sunday.‎The victory was the icing on the cake after they secured a landmark promotion to the top Division of the country’s premier schools cricket tournament by virtue of their semi final win.

‎The triumph was built on a disciplined all-round performance, with Ravindu Vikasitha spearheading an incisive bowling effort after a solid collective showing with the bat in the first innings.

‎Having elected to bat first, Lyceum’s top and middle order combined effectively to post a competitive 244 in 74.2 overs. Contributions flowed throughout the lineup, with Dinosh Jelon leading the way with a fluent 51, while Gagan Enosh (42), Tharusha Ranasinghe (24), Mihisara Osan (31), Thisanga Semith (27), and Shaleela Prabashshara (21) all played valuable supporting roles. Taxila’s response with the ball was steady, with Janiru Athulathmudali claiming 3 for 33, while Yasith Weththasinghe and Thilin Kumara picked up two wickets apiece.

‎However, the game turned decisively in Lyceum’s favour when their bowlers dismantled the Taxila batting lineup for just 92 runs in 34.3 overs. Vikasitha was the chief destroyer with an outstanding five-wicket haul, while Sadil Dias and Jelon chipped in with two wickets each to ensure a massive first innings lead.

‎Lyceum continued their dominance in the second innings, scoring 276 runs in 95 overs. Mihisara Osan came agonizingly close to a century, falling for 99, while Thisanga Semith (68) and Shaleela Prabashshara (56) produced impressive half-centuries to further underline the team’s batting depth. Despite Yasiru Kalhara’s excellent effort of 6 for 59 and Rashan Nawanjana’s 3 for 58, Taxila were unable to claw their way back into the contest.

‎Set an improbable task, Taxila showed some resistance in their second innings, reaching 121 for 3 in 49 overs at the close. Sandith Ranaweera top-scored with 40, while Raniru Athulathmudali added 38 in a steady rebuilding effort.

‎Despite the defeat, Taxila have much to celebrate, as both finalists earned promotion to the top Division—marking a historic breakthrough for the Horana school, which, like Lyceum, had never previously competed at that level.

‎For Lyceum International, this victory carries even greater significance, as they become the first international school in Sri Lanka to qualify for the top Division of the Under 19 schools cricket tournament—an achievement that signals a new chapter in the island’s school cricket landscape.

‎Brief Scores:

‎Lyceum International, Wattala – 244 all out in 74.2 overs (Gagan Enosh 42, Dinosh Jelon 51, Mihisara Osan 31; Janiru Athulathmudali 3/33) and 276 all out in 95 overs (Mihisara Osan 99, Thisanga Semith 68, Shaleela Prabashshara 56; Yasiru Kalhara 6/59)

‎Taxila College, Horana – 92 all out in 34.3 overs (Sandith Ranaweera 23; Ravindu Vikasitha 5/18) and 121 for 3 in 49 overs (Sandith Ranaweera 40, Raniru Athulathmudali 38)

(RF)‎

Sports

Lithum, Kavindu steer Wesley to title with huge stand

Published

14 hours ago

2026/04/21

Thilina Walpola

Wesley College clinched the Under 19 Division I Tier B cricket title with a first innings win over Sri Sumangala College, Panadura at Surray Village ground on Monday

A monumental sixth-wicket partnership between Lithum Senuja and Kavindu Hettiarachchi powered Wesley College to a commanding first innings victory over Sri Sumangala College Panadura in the Under 19 Division I Tier ‘B’ cricket tournament final at Surrey Village Ground, Maggona on Monday.

‎Resuming the final day on 281 for 5 in reply to Sri Sumangala’s first innings total of 239, Wesley were already in a strong position. However, the overnight pair of Senuja and Hettiarachchi ensured there would be no way back for their opponents, extending their partnership to a match-defining 278 runs for the sixth wicket.

‎Sri Sumangala, who had built a reputation for strong second innings fightbacks during the latter stages of the tournament, were effectively taken out of contention as Wesley piled up a formidable 416 for seven wickets in their alloted first innings overs. The sheer scale of the total left the Panadura outfit with no realistic chance of mounting another comeback.

‎Both batsmen converted their overnight scores into well-deserved centuries. Senuja anchored the innings with a patient 101 off 239 deliveries, striking 13 boundaries, while Hettiarachchi played the more aggressive role, compiling an impressive 134 off 164 balls, including 13 fours and three sixes. Their contrasting yet complementary knocks laid the foundation for Wesley’s dominance.

‎In their second essay Sri Sumangala were 148 for four wickets at close.

‎Earlier in the match, Sri Sumangala posted 239 in their first innings, with Vidura Basuru leading the way with a solid 97. He received support from Nikesh Iddamalgoda (54) and Bihanga Silva (32). Wesley’s bowling effort was shared, with Jeewahan Sriram claiming 3 for 40, while Hettiarachchi and Methnula Mayadunna chipped in with two wickets apiece.

‎Despite the defeat, Sri Sumangala had the consolation of promotion, as both finalists secured elevation to the top tier of Division I cricket next season.

‎‎Scores:

‎Sri Sumangala

239 all out in 82.5 overs

‎(Vidura Basuru 97, Nikesh Iddamalgoda 54, Bihanga Silva 32; Jeewahan Sriram 3/40, Kavindu Hettiarachchi 2/37, Methnula Mayadunna 2/20) and 148 for 4 in 46.4 overs (Sandeep Wijerathne 31, Neksha Iddamalgoda 63, Bihanga Silva 23n.o.; Kavindu Hettiarachchi 2/09)

‎Wesley 281 for 5 overnight 416 for 7 in 120 overs (Rasheed Nahyan 78, Lithum Senuja 101, Kavindu Hettiarachchi 134, Senura Lakshan 32n.o.; Mevindu Kumarasiri 5/197)