ISLAMABAD: Bangladesh Beat Afghanistan by six wickets in its first encounter of the ICC World Cup played in Dharamsala, India on Saturday. Thanks to the suburb three-wicket haul of the skipper Shakib-ul-Hassan and an all-round -performance of Mehidy Hasan Miraz, who both outclassed the Afghan batting and bowling line.
Earlier, winning the toss, Bangladesh invited Afghanistan to bat first. Afghan openers took a solid start to score over 40 runs in the first 8 overs. However, Shakib-ul-Hassan came in the middle to get rid of Ibrahim Zadran on 22. After Ibrahim, Number three batter Rehmat Shah joined Gurbaz, and both took the innings forward. However, when the score reached 83, Rehmat Shah was also dismissed by Shakib. From there Afghanistan was not able to recover, and the game seems to have slept away from them as all of the batting side went to the pavilion while scoring just 156 runs. From Afghanistan, only Gurbaz showed some resistance who scored a brilliant 47 runs while facing 62 balls. In the tail Omerzai also added crucial 22 runs to the total.
Along with Shakib’s three-wicket haul, Mehidy Hassan bowled well and grabbed three wickets as well while conceding just 25 runs in 9 overs.
Bangladesh Batting
Defending a low total, the Afghanistan blowing side managed to get an early wicket of Tanzid Hasan who was run out on just 5, followed by the dismissal of Litton Das on 13. However, Mehedy Hassan Miraz and Najmul Hossain Shanto managed to stay on the crease, and both smashed half-centuries to take the game away from Afghanistan. Miraz scored 57, while Shanto remained unbeaten on 59. Bangladesh reached the target in the 35th over with six wickets in hand. Fazal Haq Faroqi, Naveen, and Azmatullah Omerzai got 1 wicket each from the Afghanistan side. This was the 13th successive defeat for Afghanistan at the World Cup.
