Desk Report:
Nurul Hasan Sohan bowed his head and paid tribute to Shariful Islam. No, not for the bowling, but for the four he hit Azmatullah Omarzai with the first ball of the last over at mid-on. Those four stopped the beating of hearts and brought the taste of winning the series.
Bangladesh defeated Afghanistan by 2 wickets in the second T20I in Sharjah today. With this thrilling victory, the series was confirmed with one match to spare. This is the first series win against Afghanistan on foreign soil.
The target for victory was 148 runs. Bangladesh was trembling in their chest while chasing the target of 152 runs in the first match. Sohan was trusted yesterday as well as the day before yesterday. Has the batting picture changed? The more that story is told, the more disappointment will increase.
The two openers who gave the opening partnership of centuries in the first match returned with a narrow margin. Tanjid Hasan Tamim and Parvez Hossain Emon both scored 2 runs before being caught by Azmatullah Omarzai. Saif Hasan gave the message to slow down with 1 four and 2 sixes. He too had to fall for 18 runs off 14 balls.
Zaker Ali and Shamim Patwary walked towards building a partnership in the opposing environment. Zaker was trying to get back to the score by promoting himself. 2 sixes also came from his bat. Shamim was a bit more aggressive in comparison. After this partnership crossed 50 for the fourth wicket, victory seemed inevitable. That’s when the danger started to increase.
Afghan captain Rashid Khan broke the 56-run partnership by trapping Zaker in the LBW trap. 32 runs came from the Bangladesh captain’s bat in 25 balls with 2 fours and 2 sixes. Shamim was progressing well with Sohan. But he could not stop himself from being ambitious. He was cut while playing an unnecessary reverse sweep to Nur Ahmed. The left-armer returned for 33 runs with 3 fours and 2 sixes in 22 balls.
Rashid in the 17th over and Azmatullah Omarzai in the 18th over removed Nasum (10) and Saifuddin-Rishad Hossain, but the fear of defeat was more raised. Sohan-Shariful pushed it away and won with 5 balls in hand with smart batting. He remained unbeaten on 31 runs with 1 four and 3 sixes in 21 balls.
Shariful’s bat showed a surprise and scored 11 runs with 2 fours in 6 balls. Earlier, he also won the man of the match award for taking 1 wicket for just 13 runs in 4 overs in bowling. However, the left-arm pacer was not in the first match’s eleven. Saifuddin entered the eleven like him.
Taskin Ahmed and Tanzim Ahmed were rested. Apart from them, Bangladesh maintained consistency in bowling. That is why Afghanistan could not score more than 147 runs for 5 wickets after losing the toss and batting first. The highest 38 runs came from the bat of Ibrahim Zadran. Apart from this, Rahmanullah Gurbaz scored 30 runs.
Rishad and Nasum took the highest 2 wickets each for Bangladesh. Rishad, however, was in the red. He gave away 45 runs in 4 overs. Nasum limited himself to 25 runs. Saifuddin gave away only 22 runs despite not getting any wickets.
Bangladesh has only managed to whitewash Afghanistan once in T20Is so far – in 2023 on home soil. Zaker-Shariful will have that opportunity again in the final T20I in Sharjah the day after tomorrow.
