Tamim, Shakib fire Bangladesh to 91-run win against Zimbabwe

Tamim Iqbal’s 76 and Shakib Al Hasan’s half-century and 3 for 34 have powered Bangladesh to a huge 91-run win over Zimbabwe in the Tri-Nation Series.

Sports Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 23 Jan 2018, 01:22 PM
Updated : 23 Jan 2018, 04:58 PM

The Tigers opted to bat first after the winning the toss and made a paltry 217 for 9 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.

Then their bowlers made light work of the Zimbabwe batsmen to skittle them out for 125 in the 36th over in Bangladesh’s third straight victory with bonus points in the series.

Tamim was adjudged the Man of the Match for 76 runs off 105 balls.

Bangladesh have already stormed into the final after securing their biggest victory by margin of runs in the second match against Sri Lanka.

Tuesday’s win also propelled Mashrafe Bin Mortaza to become the most successful ODI skipper of Bangladesh with 30 victories. The previous record of 29 wins was held by Habibul Bashar.  

After a good start, opener Tamim was still at the crease when Shakib left with Bangladesh on 112 and after Mushfiqur Rahim’s (18 off 25) departure with the score on 147, only to see the middle order collapse.

Shakib proved himself at one-down again after Bangladesh lost Anamul Haque in the third over. 

Tail-enders Sunzamul Islam and Mustafizur Rahman helped take the score past 200 with 19 and 18 not out respectively after Bangladesh lost six wickets for 23 runs thanks to Graeme Cremer’s four-for.

Chasing the low score, Zimbabwe lost their opener Hamilton Masakadza in the third over, caught in the first slip by Sabbir Rahman trying to punch Mashrafe.

Before the skipper struck again in the ninth over to take out Craig Ervine to leave Zimbabwe tottering at 34 for four, Shakib missed another hat-trick after claiming the scalps of Solomon Mire and Brendan Taylor.

He had also taken back-to-back wickets also against Sri Lanka.      

Sikandar Raza (39 off 59) was the top scorer of Zimbabwe, who have only one win in the series against Sri Lanka.

But the southern Africans will be in the final only if the Tigers can beat Sri Lanka by a huge margin on Thursday.