A rain shortened nine over shootout between the Rangpur Riders and Lahore Qalandars saw the Bangladesh Premier League side progress to the final of the inaugural ExxonMobil Guyana Global Super League (GSL) after they won by 23 runs on DLS on Thursday night at Providence.
Rangpur captain Nurul Hasan won the toss and elected to bat first. Eventual Player of the Match Steven Taylor and Soumya Sarkar got the Riders off to a healthy start, putting on 47 runs for the opening wicket before the latter was bowled by Salman Mirza for 22 runs off 13 deliveries.
The wicket brought Saif Hassan to the crease and he set about plundering the Qalandars attack, finding the fence on five occasions with four fours and a towering six.
Hassan and Taylor remained undefeated on 27 off 14 balls and 32 off 27 balls, respectively, when the rains returned and denied them the rest of their batting effort, finishing 85-1 off nine overs.
It was calculated by DLS that Qalandars would require a stiff 111 runs off their nine overs in order to win.
The task seemed like a steep one and so it proved. Despite 31 off 20 from Mirza Baig and a rapid 25 off 12 balls from Tom Abell, the run rate was too steep for the Qalandars and they lost wickets regularly attempting to throw caution to the wind.
Needing 33 runs off the final over, Faheem Ashraf hit a six off the first ball before nudging a single to bring Carlos Brathwaite on strike.
Needing four sixes in a row at the last, it was fitting that Brathwaite was on strike but he couldn’t repeat the heroics and thunderous sixes he struck off Ben Stokes in the 2016 World T20 final, being bowled by Zak Chappell for a first ball duck.
Qalandars ended up on 87-7 off their nine overs, a valiant effort but the DLS target was a challenging one and proved just out of reach.
The final scores meant that Qalandars were knocked out and so too home side Guyana Amazon Warriors as the margin of victory was too great by the Riders, each side finished on four points apiece but the superior run rate saw Riders go through to Friday’s grand final where Victoria await.