Mustafiz rocks on Sussex debut
Bangladesh paceman Mustafizur Rahman was the toast of cricket fans once again after he made a successful debut for English county club Sussex in NatWest T20 Blast with a man-of-the-match performance at Chelmsford on Thursday. Mustafiz grabbed 4-23 as Sussex beat Essex by 24 runs by restricting the home side to 176-8 after putting in 200-6 on board.The match held with Mustafiz still jet-lagged having reached England hours before after visa complication.
Sussex took no time to hand him his debut and was immediately benefitted by the clever bowling of the little Bangladeshi genius, who came into the attack in the sixth over of the innings to make an instant impact.
His all four wickets, however, came in his second spell starting at a time when Sussex were staring at defeat despite making a sizeable score.
Mustafiz rescued the side, first by removing dangerman Ravi Bopara and then claiming the wickets of James Foster, Callum Taylor and Rayan ten Doeschate.
His performance drew some huge praises from Sussex captain Luke Wright, who hailed the bowler as a ‘special talent’ and he said he ‘was worth the wait’ in a Twitter message.
‘It has taken some hard work to get Mustafiz here, and a lot of people have worked hard to make it happen,’ West Sussex County Times later quoted Wright as saying about Mustafiz.
‘Now we can see why he was worth so much time and effort. He is a very special bowler. He has put in a performance straight away that was very special to watch.
‘It is so hard to pick what he is going to do. In the warm-up we were trying to work him out and we couldn’t. Credit to our keeper Craig Cachopa who kept really well to him tonight – it is not easy when you’ve had no time to watch him before or to have faced him.
‘He got a flight yesterday so he’s come straight in and bowled like that. We have a very special talent on our hands.’
It was a must-win game for Sussex in order to stay in contention as they were languishing at seventh place in the table. The win took the side to fourth place keeping them alive in the competition.
‘Had we lost tonight [Thursday] we knew it would have been all over,’ said Wright. ‘But we’re definitely still in with a chance. If we can beat Surrey [on Friday night] then it sets up a huge match against Glamorgan at Hove next week.’
-With New Age input
