Tigers seal fifth series on the trot

A confident 76 from Imrul Kayes, which sent a warning to Bangladesh's top order batsman who are yet to click in this series and some aggressive captaincy from Mashrafe Bin Mortaza led Bangladesh to their fifth consecutive home series victory.

The hosts might have ended up winning by a comfortable 58 runs in Mirpur yesterday, however, the story could have been different had Imrul, who had made a late entry into the squad after Soumya Sarkar's injury, not played his boundary-filled knock.

After being put into bat for the second consecutive time in the series, Bangladesh's batsmen struggled to score and slumped to 79 for 3 in 18 overs.

Imrul's 76 managed to take the hosts past the 150-mark. But after his fall, the hosts seemed to be looking down the barrel at 151 for 5 after 32 overs.

However, Sabbir, who scored a 40-ball 33 and Nasir who stroked a cautious 41 off 53 balls helped the hosts post a defendable 241.

For the visitors, pacer Tinashe Panyangara was the standout performer, finishing with figures of 3 for 41 in ten overs.

The one thing that was certain after the exchange was that for Bangladesh to win, they needed early wickets and that seemed to be Mashrafe's sole aim.

He constantly kept the changes coming and by the 12th over had already employed all his five bowlers.

The ploy seemed to work well as the hosts scalped three early wickets. By the end of the ninth over, Zimbabwe were 45 for 3.

Craig Ervine and Elton Chigumbura tried to stitch a partnership, but failed after a 28-run stand as Ervine was brilliantly run-out by Liton Das.

At 78 for 4, many would have thought that the end was near for the visitors, but that of course wasn't true. Sikandar Raza came in to join his skipper and together the pair began taking the attack to the Bangladeshi bowlers.

Both Raza and Chigumbura used their feet well and ensured to punish the deliveries that were in their range.

At the end of 33 overs, there was a bit of a tension that gripped the stadium as the Zimbabweans had managed to climb out of the hole that they were in and were poised at 149 for 4. At that point they required just 93 runs from 17 overs and both of them looked set.

The very next over, Mashrafe introduced Al-Amin Hossian and brought the fielders down the ground inside the circle with an intention to attack the batsmen with bouncers; and the ploy worked. The first bouncer got Raza's edge while the second forced Chigumbura to scoop one down the throat of Imrul at the third-man area.

The rest was left to Bangladesh's star pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who along with Nasir Hossain, cleaned up the tail and helped bundle Zimbabwe out for just 183 in 43.2 overs.