BBPL 2020
Soumya getting out there was a massive wicket: Malan
|| CF Correspondent ||
Cumilla Warriors captain Dawid Malan lamented for the dismissal of Soumya Sarkar in the crucial moment of the game, which he termed as the reasons for their 34-run defeat to Khulna Tigers in a must-win game in special edition of BPL on Wednesday.
Khulna Tigers piled up a hefty 179-2 but Cumilla, despite losing the two key wickets of Malan and Stiaan Van Zyl, was very much in the game through Soumya Sarkar and Sabbir Rahman.
They needed one of them to bat deep with the asking run rate in the control but both of them got out in crucial moment to finally sink Cumilla by 34 runs.
Malan believes the loss of Soumya Sarkar’s wicket was crucial to their defeat, which almost dented their hopes to seal the play-off race. With one game at hands, Cumilla needs to win it and waits for the outcome of other matches.
“We were on par to win the game, we were above the rate with 15 runs ahead of them with 6 overs to go with 5-6 wickets in hand. The way Sabbir and Soumya played was fantastic. They kept us in the game the whole way, they kept up with the rate,” Malan said after the match on Wednesday.
“Soumya getting out there was a massive wicket, he is our in-form player, he has been playing exceptionally well. So, it was disappointing that happened but we still should have won that game. We needed 10 runs an over with 5-6 wickets in hand with 6 overs to go. So it was disappointing that we did not come closer.”
Also there was a lack of finishers in the team, which was another reason that Cumilla couldn’t cash in on it, insisted Malan.
“You always want Andre Russell or Kieran Pollard or someone to be there in the end. But they did not have that in their team, they had one of their set batsmen there, top 4 batsmen scored runs. We had two of the top 4 batsmen there who were really playing exceptionally well. We just needed one of them to bat for another three overs and it would have been a different game,” he said.