Ryan ten Doeschate played a brilliant unbeaten innings of 95 runs from 61 balls to set up a crushing 89-run win for Chittagong Kings over Khulna Royal Bengals in the Bangladesh Premier League on Thursday.
Looked set for a disaster with 10-3, the Dutchman batted sensibly to take Kings to a respectable 156-5 before their bowlers produced a commanding performance for their third consecutive win.
The Royal Bengals were shot out for 67, easily the lowest score in the brief history of the BPL, which made them the second side to be unable to cross the 100-run mark against a new-look Kings.
Kings, who won their previous two matches by eight wickets and 54 runs earlier, had restricted Dhaka Gladiators to 88-8, which was the previous lowest total in the tournament.
After the resounding victory, Kings consolidated fourth spot in the table with eight points from eight games, while the Royal Bengals are rooted to the bottom with four points from nine games.
Kevon Cooper was the wrecker-in-chief for the port-city outfit, taking four wickets at a miserly cost of 10 runs while Enamul Haque Jr and Jacob Oram shared five wickets between them.
None of the Royal Bengals batsmen were able to put up any sort of resistance with wickets tumbling at regular intervals. With the exception of Shahriar Nafees and Farhad Reza, no other Khulna batsman could even reach double figures.
Kings also had a similarly poor start to the game with three wickets falling for 10 runs inside the first four overs, but ten Doeschate and new signing David Millar helped them recover from the precarious position.
Together with South African Miller, ten Doeschate put on 61 runs for the fourth wicket to the revive Chittagong’s innings. Ten Doeschate struck seven fours and four colossal sixes to put the finishing touch to the Chittagong’s innings.
The Dutch batsman was particularly harsh on any delivery offered towards the on-side, with most of his boundaries and sixes coming through the mid-wicket region.
Thanks to ten Doeschate Kings plundered 107 runs in the last 10 overs, including 69 in the last five overs with 36 coming from the last two alone.
BRIEF SCORES
Chittagong Kings 156-5 in 20 overs (RN ten Doeschate 95 not out, DA Miller 22; S Zadran 2-21) v Khulna Royal Bengals 67 in 14.2 overs (S Nafees 15; K Cooper 4-10, J Oram 2-15).
Result: Chittagong Kings won by 89 runs.
Man of the match: RN ten Doeschate (CK)