Winning start for Tigers
In front of a highly enthusiastic crowd at the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium, which rarely gets to see the Tigers in town, Bangladesh coasted to a four-wicket win in the first of the four T20I series against Zimbabwe yesterday.
It might have been a comfortable finish in the end with Mashrafe Bin Mortaza and co ambling past their target of 163 with four wickets and eight balls remaining, but the cracks in Bangladesh's T20 approach were on display yet again.
Make no mistake; yesterday's win holds plenty of value. This was the highest T20 score that the Tigers chased down at home and the second highest overall.
However, the way they went about their chase presented plenty of questions. The one aspect that the batters continue to keep struggling with is their inability to make the best of their starts.
Tamim Iqbal, Sabbir Rahman and Mushfiqur Rahim, despite having spent ample time at the crease, were all caught whilst trying to up the tempo, which just multiplied the pressure for the lower-order batsmen.
It's a problem that the team management is well versed with and that's the reason why they fielded eight batsman, aside from Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, yesterday.
And all eight of them had to play in order to help Bangladesh over the line. While Tamim, Shakib Al Hasan -- who batted at number six for the first time -- and Mushfiqur all contributed with a scores in the 20s, Sabbir top-scored with 46.
Promoted to number three, it seems as though the management wants to utilise Sabbir's hitting ability as much as possible in this format. He found his groove early on, reverse-sweeping and smacking boundaries, however it was one such attempt in the 15th over that saw him caught at the deep. This took place after he was dropped at long-on on 36.
Ultimately, Bangladesh needed 27 runs from the last three overs with debutant Nurul Hasan and Shakib at the crease. They got those runs in 18.5 overs, courtesy of the ten wides bowled by Zimbabwe's pacers towards the end.
Earlier, despite a record 101-run opening stand in T20Is for Zimbabwe between Hamilton Masakadza and Vusi Sibanda, the visitors failed to make the most of their start.
Masakadza smacked two sixes and nine fours in his 53-ball 79, equalling his own record for the highest ever T20I score by a Zimbabwean.
The combination of Mustafizur Rahman and Al-Amin Hossain though proved to be too difficult as the visitors posted just 21 runs in the last four overs. Mustafizur finished on 2 for 18, while Al-Amin posted 2 for 24.
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