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Nasir Shawkat returned with a five-wicket burst to put Biman in a comfortable position against Wair Club in their final Janakantha Premier League match at the Dhanmondi Cricket Stadium yesterday.

The Pakistani right-arm seamer took five wickets for 70 runs in his 14 overs as Wari, opting to bat first after calling the coin correctly, were bundled out for 210 in 67 overs.

But at close of first day's play, pressure seemed to have mounted on Biman as the national airline outfit, needing a victory against the traditional giant-slayers to lift the coveted title, were reduced to two for 68 in 13 overs.

Wari sent a little chill down the Biman spine when they reduced the title-aspirants to 49 for 2 in 11 overs. Opener Javed Omar, who scored a century in the previous match, and skipper Faruque Ahmed made a long walk to the pavilion scoring 3 and 10 respectively.

But Habibul Bashar, the other opener and Ziaur Rashid saw off the next two overs without further damage much to the relief a huffing and puffing Biman officials, who in an apparent bid to keep their wickets intact sent the nightwatchman instead of their regular number four batsman Aminul Islam.

Although there was no devil on the wicket, Biman would certainly live on their nerves to score those priceless 143 runs today.

At the Bangabandhu National Stadium, Victoria set Mohammedan Sporting Club a daunting target of scoring 255 runs to avoid the third consecutive defeat.

Victoria put up the fighting total before being all out in 79.1 overs with Manzoor Elahi notching highest 59 off 76 balls. The former Pakistan Test cap, arguably dubbed as the hardest hitter of the ball during his salad days, hammered six fours and a sixer while opening the Victoria innings with Imran.

He put on 98 runs for the second wicket with Rezaul (35) before being clean bowled by off-spinner Salim Shahed in the 29th over.

After the departure of Manzoor, wickets fell at regular interval in the face of some quality bowling from Mohammedan skipper Mohammed Rafique. The slow left-armer ripped through the Victoria middle-order to finish with four for 37 in his 16 economical overs.

Shahed extended a very good support to his skipper to put a break on Victoria score. He maintained a tight line and length to return with two for 23 in his 16 overs.

Although the bowlers did well to restrict Victoria to an attainable score, Mohammedan might find it difficult to overhaul the target with their depleted batting line-up. They took the field without their two Kenyan recruits --- Steve Tikolo and Maurice Odumbe-- and opener Imran Hamid. The Kenyan batsmen went home last week after the expiry of their contracts and Imran was nursing his injured left ankle.

Mohammedan conceded a stunning three-wicket defeat against lowly Sadharan Bima in the previous match.

Away at the BKSP in Savar, Surjo Tarun brightened their chances of finishing third in the League when they stormed to a ten-wicket win over Agrani Bank.

The two-day match turned into a one-day affair when Surjo Tarun, aided by a six-wicket haul from their Pakistani off-spinner Arshad Khan, shot the bankers out for a meagre 86 in 31.1 overs.

Arshad finished with fantastic figures of 9.3-3-18-6. Former national left-arm seamer Anisur Rahman, who took three wickets for 29 runs, ably supported the tall tweaker.

After the good work by the bowlers, Surjo Tarun then went on to score 88 for no loss in only eight overs, thanks to a breezy unbeaten 41 from Al-Shahriar and an equally impressive 37 not out from Parvez.

Al-Shahir, who set the field afire with flurry of shots, hammered eight disdainful fours in his 24-ball knock.