Fresh from a historic Test series victory, the home side's holidays were spoilt somewhat by man-of-the-match Douglas Hondo who captured three wickets while off-spinner Prosper Utseya and new ball bowler Tinashe Panyangara shared four wickets as Zimbabwe bowled out Bangladesh for 229 in 49.1 overs under lights while defending 251-8.

The victory ended the inexperienced southern Africans' 17-match losing streak.

The Tigers badly missed fast bowler Mashrafee-Bin-Mortuza and champion spinner Mohammad Rafique and sensational left-arm tweaker Enamul Haque who shaped their Test series win.

Opener Rajin Saleh cracked a 40-ball 45 with seven boundaries to give Bangladesh a bright start but rest of the top-order failed to carry the momentum even with some generous fielding slips by their opponents.

Dhaka Test centurion Nafees Iqbal surprisingly settled for a slow 25-ball 12 before trying to up the tempo but he only succeeded in being caught at mid-off with the total on 34 in the seventh over.

The sloppy Zimbabweans dropped Rajin on 39, Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar on nine and Mohammad Ashraful while on five but neither of the top guns could make the most of those chances.

Rajin mistimed a pull to give an easy catch at mid-on while Bashar, who made 39 off 54 balls, steered the ball to backward point as the Tigers were reduced to 119-3.

Hondo, who gave away 21 runs in his four-over first spell, destroyed the middle-order in his second capturing 3-15 in six overs.

The paceman accounted for Aftab Ahmed and Alok Kapali in successive overs before sending back Khaled Mashud as Bangladesh lost three wickets in the space of 15 runs.

With the asking rate increasing rapidly, Ashraful (42 off 75 balls) tried to break the shackles but managed to hole out to off-spinner Utseya at wide long-on in the 42nd over.

Needing 87 runs from the final nine overs, Khaled Mahmud and Tapash Baisya entertained the strong local crowd plundering 42 runs for the eighth wicket in just 28 deliveries. But their brave stand was not enough for the home side to avoid their 13th defeat against Zimbabwe in 14 encounters.

Mahmud, who made 34 off 30 balls, was unfortunate to be run out in the 46th over with the team still 45 runs away from the target. Tapash, who smashed four fours and a six off Utseya, remained unbeaten on 33 off 26 balls when last-man Nazmul Hossain was run out.

Earlier, half-centuries by Hamilton Masakadza (54) and Brendan Taylor (58) and a swashbuckling 41 off 32 balls by Elton Chigumbura helped Zimbabwe post a challenging total after electing to bat.

The second one-dayer is in Chittagong on January 24.