Career-best bowling figures from Mehidy Hasan restricted West Indies to only 198 for 9 in the deciding third ODI against Bangladesh. His 4 for 29 engineered a mid-innings batting collapse from which the visitors never recovered. But Shai Hope's second successive century, an unbeaten 108 which is more than 50 per cent of his team's score, at least got them to some respectability. Hope was quite obviously a cut above the rest of the West Indies batsmen.
Mehidy took two of the three wickets that fell in the space of 22 balls as West Indies slipped from 96 for 2 in the 23rd over to 99 for 5 in the 26th. Shakib Al Hasan and Mashrafe Mortaza took two wickets each while Mohammad Saifuddin, with his only wicket, began the collapse.
Marlon Samuels, on 19, was bowled off the inside edge from a Saifuddin offcutter against which he hardly moved his feet. On cue, Mehidy removed his bunny Shimron Hetmyer, whom he has now dismissed six times in seven innings during this tour. Hetmyer ended the ODI series with 20 runs from three knocks, a stark contrast from his sparkling batting in the two Tests.
Rovman Powell's wretched tour of subcontinent ended when Mehidy had him caught behind. Powell made just 16 runs in three innings here, adding to his 61 runs in the five ODIs in India earlier.
Soon after, Shakib had Chase and Fabian Allen, who replaced Oshane Thomas, caught in the deep. He lured Chase into mishitting one to long-off before Allen, having struck a straight six to get off the mark, was caught brilliantly at deep midwicket by Mohammad Mithun.
Mashrafe then bowled Keemo Paul and Kemar Roach, before Hope went from 94 to his fourth ODI century with a straight six off Shakib, and ensured that West Indies at least lasted their full 50 overs, reports espncricinfo.com.
But when the West Indies innings had started, Hope may have thought that he would get a little more support from the other end. In fact, up until the Hope-Samuels partnership, West Indies were progressing nicely.
Hope started with a typical Caribbean on-the-up drive to get West Indies going. He struck boundaries through cover, midwicket and mid-off, but in between, Mehidy had Chandrapaul Hemraj caught at point in the fourth over, and bowled Bravo in the 14th over to peg them back.
