Bangladesh dethroned world champions England to earn their spot at the top of ICC Cricket World Cup Super League standings following their 88-run win over Afghanistan in Chattogram on Monday.
With the latest victory, the Tigers won 10 matches out of 14 in the league, becoming the first side to reach 100 points with a net run rate of 0.422.
England stand second at the table with 95 points and is followed by India, Ireland, and Sri Lanka.
Australia, Afghanistan, and the West Indies are in sixth, seventh, and eighth places, respectively.
Pakistan, South Africa, and New Zealand are ranked ninth, tenth, and twelfth.
The top eight teams in the CWC Super League points table will automatically qualify for the World Cup 2023.
Bangladesh reached the milestone after Litton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim stitched together a partnership of 202-run as the tigers’ posted a formidable total of 306 for 4 total, before the bowlers combined effectively to bowl out Afghanistan for 218 runs in 45.1 overs.
This is the Tigers’ sixth consecutive ODI series win at home and they have won seven of their eight CWSL games at home turf.
The journey to the top
Bangladesh started their CWSL journey by whitewashing West Indies 3-0 in January 2021.
The Tigers dominated the West Indies throughout the series with the visitors failing to cross the 200-run mark in all the games.
In the first two matches, they were bowled out for 122 and 148, with homegrown spinners wreaking havoc.
In the third match, when Bangladesh batted first, fifties from Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmud Ullah helped them post a mammoth target of 298, which was 120 runs too many for West Indies.
Shakib Al Hasan, who returned to ODI cricket after a gap of two years, did not miss a beat as he was named Player of the Series for 113 runs and six wickets.
However, Bangladesh saw the other side of the coin away from home as New Zealand defeated them 3-0 on Kiwi soil, proving the Tigers have miles to go before posing a real threat outside the subcontinent.
The red and green side were beaten convincingly in the first ODI where they were all out for 131, but put up a better performance in the second game. They still came up short, with Tom Latham century convincingly cruising the kiwis’ to victory.
Bangladesh suffered a heavy 164-run loss in the final ODI.
As expected, the tigers’ came back strongly at their happy hunting ground Mirpur, with a 2-1 series victory over Sri Lanka.
Mushfiqur Rahim orchastered the victory in the first two games with scores of 84 and 125. Sri Lanka were beaten in the first and second ODIs by 33 and 103 runs respectively. But Bangladesh tasted defeat in the final ODI by 97 runs, which has been their only loss at home so far in the CWCSL.
Away from home, the Tigers whitewashed Zimbabwe 3-0 cementing a strong position at the top of CWSL table.
A century by Liton Das and a fifer from Shakib Al Hasan helped them register a dominant 155-run win in the first ODI.
Bangladesh faced strong resistance in the second game, where they found themselves reduced to 145/6 chasing 241. Shakib bailed them out of trouble, batting till the end to finish on 96* and Zimbabwe were beaten by three wickets in the last over.
A Tamim Iqbal ton and some brilliant finishing by Nurul Hasan and Afif Hossain helped Bangladesh chase down a target of 299 with an over to spare in the final ODI, thus completing a flawless series.
Bangladesh have three series remaining in CWSL; they have put themselves in a strong position for automatic qualification for the 2023 World Cup.
The CWCSL 2020-23 will determine which teams qualify for the 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup in India. Apart from India, who qualify for the World Cup as hosts, the top 7 teams from the CWCSL will qualify directly for the tournament while the remaining teams will have to go through Qualifier tournaments to book a spot in the final group stages.