Led by an all-round bowling display and Tanzid Hasan’s ferocious half-century, Bangladesh cruised to a nine-wicket win over Netherlands in the second T20I, on Monday.
Put in to bat, Netherlands struggled to find any sort of momentum in their innings, with Nasum Ahmed and Taskin Ahmad picking three wickets among them in the PowerPlay. The silver lining for Netherlands during this phase was Vikramjit Singh’s contribution as he hit four boundaries in his 17-ball knock.
Netherlands fail to arrest the slide
Scott Edwards and Shariz Ahmad tried resuscitating the innings with a steady fourth wicket stand, but once the captain was sent back by Mustafizur Rahman, their innings came down crashing to earth again. By the 15th over, the visitors were languishing at 81 for 9.
Towards the fag end of the innings, Aryan Dutt smashed three boundaries and a maximum in his enterprising knock of 30, the top score of the innings, to help Netherlands breach the 100-run mark before he was castled by Mahedi Hasan.
Bangladesh make light work of tiny chase
In response, Bangladesh got the better off the early exchanges. In the second over, Parvez Hossain and Tanzid Hasan cracked a boundary each. The openers added 40 before Kyle Klein had Parvez edging an offcutter through to the ‘keeper. However, that happened to be the last moment of joy for Netherlands.
Litton Das hit his straps with a reverse sweep for a boundary before Tanzid took over. The duo played percentage cricket and turned the strike over at regular intervals. The dot balls came down to a minimum during the middle overs, and on a surface where there wasn’t much assistance for the bowlers, Bangladesh sped past Netherlands’ total with 41 balls to spare and secured a series-winning lead.
Brief Scores: Netherlands 103 in 17.3 overs (Aryan Dutt 30, Vikramjit Singh 24; Nasum Ahmed 3-21, Mustafizur Rahman 2-18) lost to Bangladesh 104/1 in 13.1 overs (Tanzid Hasan 54*, Parvez Hossain 23; Kyle Klein 1-20) by 9 wickets
