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Download PDF His bat doesn’t talk often enough; at the Wanderers his bat talked for a change and as always happens, something special for Bangladesh came hand in hand.
Mohammad Ashraful sizzled in a blistering 61 and Bangladesh cruised to a six-wicket win over West Indies in Johannesburg yesterday.
The win, Bangladesh’s first in any competitive match against West Indies, meant more than a mere two points — a passage into the elite Super Eights of the ICC World Twenty20 Championship with a match in hand against hosts South Africa. The defeat on the other hand guaranteed that West Indies go home early as they already lost their first match against the hosts on the opening day.
Meanwhile, a persistent drizzle in Durban resulted in India’s opening match against Scotland being abandoned without a ball being bowled. Both India and Scotland got a point apiece, and it left India in a situation where they had to avoid a heavy defeat against Pakistan on Friday to make it through to the Super Eights stage. Scotland finished their engagements with a point after the 51-run defeat to Pakistan in their opening game.
Scotland captain Ryan Watson won the toss and decided to send India in to bat at Kingsmead, but the rain came down again long before the players could take the field. For India, who have played just one Twenty20 game, it meant a day-long wait to give a largely new-look side a hit.
Names synonymous with Indian cricket over the past decade and more — Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly — were missing, and for the prodigal sons like Virender Sehwag and Irfan Pathan, it was an opportunity to revive stalled careers. They’ll now be back in the fray for one of the tournament’s marquee clashes, against Pakistan — assuming the inclement weather makes way for some sunshine.
Back to the Bangladesh-West Indies game, according to rankings it was the second upset of the tournament after Zimbabwe’s five-wicket win over mighty Australia on Wednesday, but given the Tigers’ reputation after their success at the World Cup proper few months back, it was not unexpected even though West Indies’s 164 was a stiff target by Twenty20 standard.
Ashraful and his boys chased it down in some style, reaching the target with the luxury of two overs in hand. And the chase becomes a lot easier when your captain reaches his 50 off only 20 balls, the fastest in Twenty20 internationals, even after being at the receiving end with the white ball in hand (his leg-spin yielded 55 runs in four overs) earlier in the piece.
The victory was sealed when Alok Kapali drove Ravi Rampaul for a single and it was greeted back home with the usual street celebrations, on the back of a tsunami alert. Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed termed the victory ‘outstanding’ in a short message immediately after the Tigers’ latest triumph.
Back to the match and with his side reeling at 28 for two, Ashraful got settled Twenty20 style when he cracked three consecutive boundaries off fast bowler Daren Powell and then added some more in the ensuing 40 minutes of play.
With an able ally in Aftab Ahmed, Ashraful resurrected the Bangladesh innings and was only dismissed with his side requiring 27 to win. He struck seven boundaries in all, some of them as sublime as sublime can be. Off the sixth ball, he carved an inswinger from Powell over extra-cover for four. Then as if taunting the fast bowler, he drag-flicked a Rampaul bouncer to the fine-leg fence for six. And as luck would have it, Fidel Edwards dropped him in exactly the same place two balls later. He was then on 29.
With opener Nazimuddin dismissed and Tamim Iqbal struggling to connect the ball at the other end, it was Aftab who kick-started the innings with an imperious pulled six off Rampaul to get off the mark and kept up to the required run-rate.
But this match was Ashraful’s. His next two sixes, came in a three-ball onslaught.
Having wrecked Dwayne Bravo’s mood with two fours in a row, Ashraful pulled a six deep into the stands. Then came his special scoop. The young captain took a quick, full ball from Edwards and twirled its direction towards fine leg in the only way he can.
Aftab made sure that the innings never lagged behind the run-rate and with Ashraful, the two added 109 for the third wicket. The boy from Chittagong remained unbeaten on 62 off 49 balls that contained eight fours and a six.
Ashraful finally fell to his opposite number Ramnaresh Sarwan as he tried to chip over cover fielder Chris Gayle’s head but was caught. This was Gayle’s only contribution as his first over dismissal inspired Bangladesh.
Left-arm seamer Syed Rasel’s short ball went as far as backward point where Kapali took a smart catch to dismiss Tuesday’s centurion for a duck. Rasel bowled a perfect spell as he conceded only 10 runs in his 4 overs.
The other opener Devon Smith, along with Shiv Chanderpaul, helped revive the West Indies innings with a 95-run second wicket stand but when the experienced Chanderpaul fell to Abdur Razzak at the long-on fence in the 14th over, Bangladesh swooped in.
The Tigers left-arm spinners — Shakib and Abdur Razzak — took full advantage of some turn in the wicket as they snared six of the eight wickets that fell.
Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Smith, who scored 27 and 29 respectively, momentarily took the game away from the Tigers but it was Shakib’s superb final over, taking three to finish with figures of 4-34.
Razzak, who bowled with the new ball with Rasel, took two for 25.
The match started an hour late due to a wet pitch which gave Ashraful more incentive to win the toss and bowl first.
Bangladesh take on South Africa in a battle to decide the Group A champions at Newlands in Cape Town tomorrow.
September 14th, 2007 at 3:41 am
beri kushi hoey bangladesh ki jeet dekh kay.. weldone tigers shabash very good.