Bangladesh chased down the fighting total of 152-run by hosts Zimbabwe with seven balls to remain and eight wickets in the first Twenty20 international at Harare Sports Club ground on Thursday.
Record-breaking opening stand of Mohammad Naim and Soumya Sarkar laid the foundation of the victory. The two scored 102 runs in 13 overs overtaking the previous opening stand of 92 by Tamim Iqbal and Liton Das in 10.1 overs against Zimbabwe in March last year. Overall this was the sixth highest partnership in T20I's for Bangladesh with the highest being 132* by Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah against West Indies in Dhaka in 2012.
Mohammad Naim scored 63 runs off 52 balls with the help of six 4’s while Soumya hit 50 off 45 with the help of four 4’s and two 6’s. He was the major aggressor in the first part of the chase. Soumya was adjudged player of the match for his tone-setting knock in the chase.
“Thanks to God for me having come here. It was a good catch that I took. And when I got the ball, I tried to bowl as the captain wanted. It would have been really good to finish off the game with the bat, though,” he said in the post-match presentation.
Skipper Mahmudullah scored 15 off 12 while wicketkeeper batsman Nurul Hasan once again showed his class after performing with energy in the third ODI. His score of 16 off 8 contained a six and a four.
Bangladesh lost the two wickets in the form of run out.
Regarding the win, Tiger captain Mahmudullah said, “The situation was like that [to hit from first ball]. We wanted to show intent, and credit goes to our top-order batters. The bowlers also came back nicely after the first 10 overs. Last seven or eight games [here] have been won by the chasing team... and we wanted to use our batting depth. The openers used their opportunity well.”
With this win, Bangladesh have joined Australia and Pakistan to be the only teams to win their 100th match in Tests, ODIs and T20Is.
Earlier in the day, Zimbabwe skipper Sikandar Raza won the toss and decided to bat first. The hosts Zimbabwe managed a fighting total of 152 runs at a loss of all wickets in 19 overs.
Regis Chakabva and Dion Myers were the spine of Zimbabwe innings. Chakabva hit 43 off 22 balls with the help of five 4’s and two 6’s while Myers scored 35 off 22 with the help of two 4’s.
Other noteworthy scores were 23 off 23 by Wessley Madhevere and 18 off 16 by Luke Jongwe.
At one stage Zimbabwe were looking like posing a steep target of somewhere around 180-190 when Chakabva was ruling over the Tiger bowlers. The hosts scored 64 in six overs between 2.0 and 8.1 overs. From there regular fall of wicket restricted Zimbabwe to 152, thanks to some tight bowling by Mohammad Saifuddin, Mustafizur Rahman and Shoriful Islam.
Mustafizur picked up three wickets giving away 31 runs in his four overs, while Saifuddin and Shoriful took two wickets each. Shakib and Soumya Sarakar shared the rest two among them.
The host captain Sikandar Raza said, “We were looking at 170-plus. I think the middle order and the lower-middle order didn’t fire. I myself take that responsibility as well.”
Indicating at Zimbabwe’s losing all 10 wickets within 19 overs he said, “Not batting that last over was criminal.”
“But there were a lot of positives we achieved today. We came out of the powerplay all right [with the ball]... But these are the challenges you take on. Tomorrow hopefully the new ball comes out right,” he added.