SYL­HET – West In­dies ODI star Shai Hope sparkled with a sub­lime, un­beat­en 91 but his Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al coun­ter­part John­son Charles eclipsed him with breath­tak­ing un­beat­en hun­dred, as Comil­la Vic­to­ri­ans pro­duced a stel­lar run chase to beat Khul­na Tigers by sev­en wick­ets in Bangladesh on Tues­day.

In a high-scor­ing con­test in the Bangladesh Pre­mier League at the Syl­het In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um, Vic­to­ri­ans made light of their tar­get of 211, get­ting over the line with 10 balls to spare.

Charles mas­ter­mind­ed the bril­liant run chase with a ca­reer-best 107 not out from 56 de­liv­er­ies, while count­ing five fours and 11 six­es.

Im­por­tant­ly, Mo­ham­mad Rizwan pum­meled 73 from 39 de­liv­er­ies, in­clud­ing eight fours and four six­es, the Pak­istan star adding a rol­lick­ing 122 for the third wick­et with Charles.

Cap­tain Hope had ear­li­er pro­vid­ed the core of Tigers’ 210 for two from their 20 overs, stroking five fours and sev­en six­es in a classy 55-ball in­nings.

Mah­mudul Hasan Joy per­ished for one in the third over with 13 runs on the board be­fore Hope and open­er Tamim Iqbal took the in­nings by the scruff of its neck in a 184-run sec­ond wick­et part­ner­ship.

Left-han­der Tamim top-scored with 95 from 61 de­liv­er­ies, smash­ing 11 fours and four six­es be­fore falling to the first ball of the fi­nal over.

Vic­to­ri­ans then had a poor start to their run chase when Lit­ton Das re­tired hurt for four af­ter the sec­ond ball of the run chase and cap­tain Im­rul Kayes de­part­ed in the third over for five, to leave the in­nings stum­bling on 22 for one.

Charles, how­ev­er, a mem­ber of the West In­dies side at the re­cent Twen­ty20 World Cup in Aus­tralia, col­lared the Tigers at­tack in a dom­i­nant dis­play of at­tack­ing.

The 34-year-old right reached his fifty off 35 balls with the last of three six­es in the 13th over from Pak­istani seam­er Amad Butt which leaked 23 runs, and need­ed on­ly an­oth­er 18 de­liv­er­ies to reach triple fig­ures – achiev­ing the land­mark with an­oth­er six off Butt in the 18th over.

Charles has scored 216 runs from six out­ings in the BPL this sea­son, av­er­ag­ing 54.

CMC