On an archetypally low and slow surface at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, New Zealand’s pacers combined to pick eight of the ten Bangladeshi wickets to fall, scripting a thrilling 26-run win in the first ODI on Friday, April 17. The chase went absolutely haywire in the death overs as Bangladesh crashed from 184/4 to 214/9.
Bangladesh had essentially wiped out half of the target by the 25th over. All they needed to do was play smart cricket and take the game closer. Instead they played too many dots and let the bowlers build pressure. They didn’t factor in the ageing ball and a deteriorating pitch, and ended up paying the price for their negligence as the run rate slowly increased from 5 to 6 to 7 and so on. With pressure, Bangladesh lost wickets as well and Towhid Hridoy was a lone warrior.
He was crying for support at the other end but they were caught in a procession. Eventually he succumbed as well, and thus New Zealand go 1-0 up in this three match series, by keeping things simple. They used the ageing the ball and pitch to great effect with tight bowling and made the hosts lose it in their minds and on the field to boot.
Brief Scores: New Zealand 247/8 in 50 overs (Henry Nicholls 68, Dean Foxcroft 59; Shoriful Islam 2-27, Rishad Hossain 2-44) beat Bangladesh 221 in 48.3 overs (Saif Hassan 57, Towhid Hridoy 55; Blair Tickner 4-40, Nathan Smith 3-45) by 26 runs.
