Bangladesh post 125 runs target for Pakistan in an attempt to avoid a whitewash.
Winning the toss, Bangladesh chose to bat first in the third consecutive game.
However, the much-anticipated changes didn’t come, as neither of Parvez Hossain Emon and Kamrul Islam Rabbi made it to the playing XI. Instead, Nasum and Shamim returned to the team with Shohidul Islam earned his debut T20I cap.
Bangladesh started their innings with yet another new opening pair in the form of Shanto and Naim which failed. Shanto (5 off 5) gave away his wicket missing the line of a debutant Dahani delivery in the second over of the innings.
Shamim Hossain coming down to bat at No 3 was a surprise. The decision seemed to have clicked as the left-hand batter stitched a 30 runs partnership with Naim Sheikh. However, both the batters were rather slow in their approach as Bangladesh could manage only 33 runs in the powerplay.
Shamim, although finding some boundaries, played too many dot balls which created pressure. In an attempt to release the pressure, he got caught at the deep mid-wicket off a Usman Qadir delivery trying to clear the fence.
Naim, on the other hand, kept struggling to find singles somewhat broke the shackles in the 10th over finding the boundary twice. With Shamim’s 22 (23) and Namim’s* 20 (25), Bangladesh were at 52/2 halfway through.
Afif Hossain also started slow but showed his intention in the 12th over of the innings bowled by Qadir, hitting 2 sixes from it.
However, boundaries didn’t help the run rate as all the Bangladesh batters kept playing too many dot balls. Bangladesh’s run rate was below 6 at the end of the 14th over.
Qadir came to bowl the 15th over and got the wicket of Afif (20 off 21) who was rather trying to increase the run rate.
Bangladesh’s run rate finally crossed 6 runs mark after the completion of the 18th over as the skipper finally connected one after some swing and miss.
Naim walked to the pavilion in the next over mis-hitting a Wasim delivery after a slow-paced 47 runs (50) knock.
Nurul Hasan (4 off 2) rather showed urgency to be back in the pavilion as threw away his wicket in an ignorant fashion. Skipper Mahmudullah (13 off 14) too got caught at the boundary trying to clear the rope.
A 7 runs final over saw the Tigers' final score going past the 120 runs mark with Aminul Islam getting run out in the final delivery.
Apart from Usman Qadir (2 for 35) and Haris Rauf (1 for 32), all the Pakistani bowlers were economical. Mohammad Wasim is the pick of the bowlers for Pakistan who bagged 2 wickets giving away only 15 runs.
Although wicketless, Iftekhar Ahmed was very efficient with his line and length conceding only 13 runs from his 4 overs.
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