Young Tigers breeze past Canada

Bangladesh earned a comprehensive eight-wicket victory against Canada in their second match of the ICC Under-19 World Cup in Basseterre today.

With Aich Mollah clearing the boundary, the defending champions bounced back following a crushing defeat against England earlier in their opening Group A fixture.

The young Tigers chased a meagre total of 136 runs quite comfortably, with eight wickets in hand and 119 balls left to play, riding on Iftakher Hossain and Nowrose Prantik Nabil's 76-run stand for the second wicket. Nabil departed after scoring 33 while Aich completed the formailty with opening batter Iftakher unbeaten on 61 runs off 89 balls.

Earlier, Canada U19s won the toss and elected to bat first and started somewhat well, piling 34 runs on the board without loss after ten overs. From then on however, it all went downhill for the Mihir Patel-led side as they were bundled out for 136 in 44.3 overs despite a 63-run knock from opening batter Anoop Chima, who faced 117 deliveries and stayed in the middle until the 41st over.

The 34-run opening stand remained Canada's highest partnership with only four of their batters reaching the double figures while the extras, comprising 15 wides, had contributed the most after Anoop's anchoring innings.

With the ball, SM Mehrob caused the decisive damage, picking out four of the first six batters in a superb spell of off-spin bowling. Medium pacer Ripon Mondol joined in to bag a four-wicket haul as well while medium pacer Ashikur Rahman scalped two.   

Bangladesh will play their next match on January 22 against the UAE. With the UAE on course for a heavy defeat against the group leaders England today, both the UAE and the Young Tigers will be fighting for the group's second place.