Losing to a six off the last ball reminded me of the Nidahas Trophy: Litton

Litton Das said Rangpur Riders’ dramatic BPL Eliminator exit against Sylhet Titans brought back painful memories of the Nidahas Trophy final, after his side lost the match to a six off the final ball at the Mirpur Sher-e Bangla National Stadium on Tuesday.

Chasing a modest target of 112 on a difficult Mirpur wicket, the Titans needed six runs off the last ball, with English all-rounder Chris Woakes on strike. Woakes smashed a wide yorker from Faheem Ashraf over the cover boundary to seal the win and knock Rangpur out of the tournament.

Visibly frustrated while facing the media after the match, Litton said the manner of defeat instantly reminded him of the 2018 Nidahas Trophy final, when Bangladesh suffered heartbreak after Dinesh Karthik struck Soumya Sarkar for a last-ball six.

“Losing to a six off the last ball reminded me of the Nidahas Trophy — six over cover, same thing,” Litton said.

However, the Rangpur captain accepted the result as part of the game.

“It’s fine. That’s cricket, that’s life. There will be ups and downs. It would have been nice to win. We couldn’t, nothing we can do now,” he added.

Litton was also asked about Rangpur’s batting performance on the night, to which he responded with a rhetorical question.

“What answer can I give to that?” he asked.

Explaining further, he pointed to the difficulty of batting on the surface.

“Seeing the wicket, both teams struggled. It’s not like they won the game in 10 overs. They won on the last ball needing six runs. That shows how tough the wicket was. Obviously, the new ball was very challenging. We lost early wickets and went on the back foot,” he said.

Litton praised the middle-order efforts despite the collapse.

“Still, I think Riyad (Mahmudullah) bhai and Khushdil (Shah) batted well, and Sohan (Nurul Hasan) bhai too. If they had been able to extend it a bit more, maybe if the score had gone to 130, the story could have been different,” he added.

He also admitted his own struggles with the bat, having scored only 200 runs in 11 outings during the season.

“Very bad,” Litton said when asked to assess his campaign.

When asked again, he repeated the same answer: “Very bad.”

Litton ended by apologising to Rangpur supporters.

“Unfortunately, we got knocked out at the qualifier. Sorry to the Rangpur fans. We couldn’t live up to their expectations, and again, sorry to them for trusting me with this responsibility — I couldn’t fulfil that expectation either,” he said.