Khaled four-for gives Rangpur Riders winning start to title defence

Bangladesh quick Khaled Ahmed was the star of the show as defending champions Rangpur Riders began their Global Super League 2025 campaign with a narrow but solid win over hosts Guyana Amazon Warriors at Providence.

Having opted to bat, Rangpur put up 162 for 5 with contributions from Kyle Mayers, Soumya Sarkar and Iftikhar Ahmed, before Khaled's four-for and two-wicket hauls from Tabraiz Shamsi and Azmatullah Omarzai mande sure Amazon Warriors fell short by eight runs.

Chasing 163, Amazon Warriors lost Rahmanullah Gurbaz cheaply to countrymate Omarzai, but Johnson Charles (40) and Moeen Ali (27) put together 48 runs in five overs to keep the chase on track.

After they were felled in back-to-back overs, contributions continued to come, but none of them were impactful enough. All of Jewel Andrew, Shimron Hetmyer, Sherfane Rutherford and Dwaine Pretorius, the Nos. 4-7, got into double-digits but couldn't carry on and make a difference.

And it was largely because of medium-pacer Khaled, who removed the dangerous Rutherford and Hetmyer in back-to-back overs, the 15th and 17th, and then got Pretorius and Shamar Springer on consecutive balls in the 19th.

Omarzai finished it off first ball of the last over by sending back David Wiese that saw Amazon Warriors bowled out for 154.

Earlier, Rangpur were slow off the blocks. They were 40 for no loss at the end of the powerplay - Amazon Warriors would get 49 for 1 later - with Saif Hassan going at a run a ball and Sarkar even slower. The impetus came only after Mayers went out and scored 44 not out in 31 balls and there were key lower-middle order contributions from Nurul Hasan (18 in ten balls) and Iftikhar (34 not out in 21).