Bangladesh team and their fans were aching for a victory in the last fixture of the ODI series against New Zealand as team Tigers never got a taste of ODI victory in the bank of the Tasman sea since their debut ODI tour in 2007. In the passage of 16 years, team Tigers played 5 ODI series comprising 3 matches each and lost every single match before this series. Even they lost the first two matches of the current tour. However, Bangladesh skipper Nazmul Hossain Shanto told the media yesterday that his team could win against the host side this time and sought to pray for not getting whitewashed this time.
Captain proved his words today and in a spellbinding style. Usually, a day match in New Zealand starts before twilight in this particular season in Bangladesh. Meaning while a portion of Bangladeshis woke up for morning prayer at 5:30 am New Zealand had lost their top order batters, thanks to the pace attack comprising of young aces from the U-19 world cup champion team Shoriful Islam and Tanzim Hasan Sakib alongside part-time bowler Soumya Sarkar and the Fizz – Mustafizur Rahman. Interestingly, pacers took all 10 wickets today – a notable achievement for a team like Bangladesh who are well-known for their spinners and spinning track at home. Little Sakib was elected for his tremendous spell of 7-2-14-3. After bowling 7 overs with two maidens, he took the wickets of Rachin Ravindra, Henry Nicholls and Tom Blundell.
His under-19 teammate Shoriful got the same amount of wickets after bowling the same amount of balls. However, he spent 22 runs in total. Another pacer to take a 3-wicket haul was Soumya Sarkar – a man who was out of the team for a long time and gained attention by his 169 runs inning in the previous match. He gave 18 runs and got a chance to bowl six overs. Mustafizur wasn’t in good shape as he was the most expensive option for this match. He gave 34 runs in a spell of 7.4 overs where he took only the last batter – Will O’Rourke and Kiwis got packed up in just 98 runs – 9th lowest team total in their history in this format.
Subsequently, Bangladesh chased down the easy target in a convincing way as well. Opener Anamul Haque gave a good start and scored 37 runs out of 33 balls before being trapped in the gloves of Tom Blundell. Another opener Soumya Sarker however had to leave the crease due to eye issues and was given retired hurt. Although skipper Shanto stayed at the crease till the end and scored a fifty with a convincing strike rate. Will O’Rourke was the only bowler from the host side to claim a wicket after spending 33 runs in 4 overs.
Both of the teams will face each other once again on 27 December in a T20 series hosted by the same nation at the same venue – McLean Park in Napier.
T20 series fixture according to Bangladesh time:
27 December at 12:10 pm at McLean Park
29 December at 12:10 pm at Bay Oval
31 December at 6:00 am at Bay Oval
