Bangladesh seal first series win against Pakistan

Dominant Bangladesh cantered to a historic series victory against Pakistan, painting a glorious picture on a greenish background under lights at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur last night.

With charming drives, eye-catching flicks, perfect pulls and trademark down-the-wicket aggression, sublime Tamim Iqbal hit back-to-back hundreds and constructed a second successive partnership with run-machine Mushfiqur Rahim to ensure an emphatic seven–wicket win.

The Tigers won the series with a game to spare, thus showing the cricket fraternity the 'beauty of Bangladesh cricket'.

There had not been much celebration from the home side after their 79-run victory in the first match of the series last Friday at the same venue as the eyes were actually on the series triumph, so wild celebrations were expected to start soon after Shakib Al Hasan nudged the first ball of the 39th over behind square-leg for the winning single, but it seemed that the Mashrafe Bin Mortaza-led team reserved it for April 22, when they play their third and final game, again at this venue.

After Zimbabwe, New Zealand and West Indies, Pakistan was the fourth Test playing nation against whom Bangladesh won a series. Bangladesh had claimed themselves favourites before the series and they stuck to their word on the field by winning the series quite comfortably.

Recovering from 77 for five, Pakistan could set up a 240-run target for the home side but it was not good enough to spoil the home side's party last night as Bangladesh's batting continued its amazing run since the World Cup which helped them to overtake the total with seven wickets and 71 balls in hand.

Tamim along with Mushfiqur as like the first game established Bangladesh's batting power against a strong Pakistan bowling attack during their 118–run partnership after a 78-run second wicket stand between Tamim and Mahmudullah Riyad provided the platform.

Tamim's scintillating batting and a breezy half-century from Mushfiqur after impressive bowling performance made sure that Pakistan had no chance to take away the initiatives from them to bounce back in the series. If consistency had been an issue for Tamim, then he probably provided an evidence for his critics that he was ready to overcome it by making a run-a-ball 116 not out that contained 17 sweetly timed boundaries and a down the track six over long-on against pacer Junaid Khan.

Tamim began the chase with a flurry of boundaries along with stylish Soumya Sarkar. Sarkar failed to temper his game after smashing four boundaries and was dismissed duely as he was caught behind attemting another big shot for 17. However, their aggression set the tone and destabilised the Pakistan attack from where the visitors failed to recover and come back into the match.

The southpaw batsman, completed his second successive hundred, becoming only the third Bangladeshi batsman to achieve it after Shahriar Nafees and Riyad, in style by glancing away Junaid for a boundary and this time he had different celebration as he held his hands aloft with joy and then swung his bat vigorously in the air.

On the other hand, Mushfiqur once again showed that he could destroy any attack by playing his perfect slog sweeps as he once again came in beside Tamim. The right-hander's 70-ball 65 that featured eight boundaries and a six was another example of brilliant batsmanship and was yet another chapter in the thriving partnership that he is quickly forging with Tamim, much to Bangladesh's pleasure.

Earlier, the Bangladesh bowlers made early inroads after the visitors decided to bat and reduced them to 77 for 5 in the 22nd over. Two left-arm spinners Shakib and Sunny muffled  the batsmen in the middle overs, but Saad Nasim and Haris Sohail initiated Pakistan's recovery act with a busy 77-run partnership. Nasim and Wahab Riaz, who hit an unbeaten 51, then plundered 49 from the last five overs to lift Pakistan to 239 for 6.

In the end, that recovery act hardly posed any threat for Bangladesh batting to stop them from the series win.