Destructive Liton, clinical Shakib earn Bangladesh dominant win over Ireland

After getting pummeled by the Bangladesh batters, Ireland found no respite in the batting department as well as the Bangladesh attack led by skipper Shakib Al Hasan ensured a thumping 77-run victory for the hosts in Chattogram on Wednesday.

Shakib Al Hasan claimed 5-22 in his four overs while Taskin Ahmed took 3-27 as Bangladesh restricted Ireland for 125-9 in 17 overs in a rain-affected match.

With these five wickets, Shakib surpassed New Zealand’s Tim Southee and became the highest wicket-taker in T20 internationals with 136 wickets.

Before Shakib’s five-for, it was Liton Das who stole the show. Liton hit a blistering 83 off 41 balls, his career-best knock in T20 internationals, to power Bangladesh to 202-3 in 17 overs.

On his way to fifty, Liton broke Mohammad Ashraful’s 16-year-old record and became the holder of the fastest T20 half-century for the Tigers.

Liton completed his fifty off just 18 deliveries, surpassing Ashraful’s 20-ball fifty against West Indies during the ICC T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007.

Other than Liton, his opening partner Rony Talukdar also had a great day with the bat, scoring a brisk 44 off 22 deliveries.

The opening partnership between Liton and Rony fetched 124 runs, making it the highest ever opening stand for the Tigers in T20s.

The partnership ended when Rony got caught off Ben White at long-on in the ninth over.

Liton was galloping towards his maiden T20 ton before getting caught behind the wicket against the same bowler.

Skipper Shakib Al Hasan and Towhid Hridoy then added 61 runs off just 29 balls for the third wicket to take the score over 200.

Towhid made 24 off 13 balls while Shakib remained unbeaten on 38 off 24 balls.

In reply, Ireland lost their skipper Paul Stirling for a golden duck in the very first ball of the innings off Taskin.

Shakib didn’t allow the tourists to recover from that early setback as he dismissed Lorcan Tucker (five off five), Ross Adair (six off five), Gareth Delany (six off five), George Dockrell (two off three) and Harry Tector (22 off 16) in quick succession to leave Ireland teetering at 43-6 after six overs.

Curtis Campher then hit a fighting 50 off 30 balls but all his innings did was lessen the margin of defeat.

Earlier, the match started 100 minutes after scheduled time due to rain.

The match finally started at 3:40pm as a 17-over-a-side contest.

With the win, Bangladesh have taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.

Bangladesh had won the first match by 22 runs in D/L method.

The third and final match of the series will take place at the same venue on 31 March.