Rizwan Butt ran riot with his unbelievable spell to help Bahrain thrash Singapore by six wickets in the Quadrangular Twenty 20 series in Bangi on Wednesday (December 21). Rizwan wreaked havoc with a fantastic five-wicket haul in a spell of 3.5 overs to bundle out Singapore to 168. In reply, Bahrain overhauled the target with six wickets and two overs to spare.
Wickets fell like ninepins in Bangi as the 31-year-old Rizwan snared five wickets in his last five balls and surprisingly couldn't snare a hat-trick. While bowling team's 18th over and his fourth, Rizwan hunted down Aryaman Sunil (11 off 8), Surendran Chandramohan (1 off 5) and Avi Dixit on duck on third, fourth and sixth ball of the over respectively. The right-arm pacer went on to take two back-to-back wickets in the 20th over as well on the first and the second ball, the saga of falling wickets didn't stop there. In the following third and fifth ball of the over, two more batters were sent to pavilion in his over, this time via run out (Akshay Puri and Vihaan Hampihallikar on the scores of 1 and four respectively). In this way in Rizwan's last nine balls, seven dismissals took place.
While chasing, Bahrain didn't get off to a good start as they suffered an early jolt in the form of opener Sarfaraz Ali on mere 7 off 5 when the scoreboard read 9/1. Imran Anwar too fell cheaply as Janak Prakash removed him on 6 off 2. Prashant Kurup and Sohail Ahmed steading Bahrain's boat and took team's score to 56. Prashant took the longest walk towards pavilion after scoring 17 off 10 balls but Sohail held the fort. Sohail struck a resilient 52 off 39 to bolster Bahrain's innings before falling prey of Baskaran's superb delivery. Haider Butt (39 off 33) and Ahmer Bin Nisar (37 off 19) finished the job in style with two overs to spare to hand Bahrain an emphatic victory.
Earlier batting first, Singapore rode on Abdul Rahman Bhadelia's 67 off 45 and Aman Desai's 64 off 33 to post a competitive total of 168. But their bowlers weren't effective to tame the Bahrain's batters as Singapore ended up standing on the losing side.
