Bangladesh' tour of Zimbabwe

[mhnew]

Bangladesh made a good and enthusiastic start to their Zimbabwean tour with a decisive seven-wicket victory over the CFX Academy team.

Mohammad Sharif and Habibul Bashar were their star performers of a day when they were more than equal to the best the opposition could produce.

They dismissed the Academy for 183 on a good batting pitch, with pace bowler Sharif turning in an impressive performance to take five wickets and also effect a run out, and then turned in a good, aggressive batting display to win with more than a third of the overs unbowled.

The match began in cloudy but dry weather at Alexandra Sports Club in Harare. The Academy won the toss and decided to bat on a good batting pitch.

The Academy lost their openers for 18 runs before Terry Duffin and Barney Rogers made a stand. The Bangladeshi pace-men were consistently accurate and nippy rather than genuinely quick, and the batsmen were forced to fight for survival. Rogers began to open up, sometimes riskily, when visiting captain Naimur Rahman brought himself on to bowl his off-breaks.

Rogers hit a breezy 46 before Sharif returned for a second spell and immediately had him caught in the covers; 102 for three in the 30th over. Duffin, batting less spectacularly but no less effectively, duly reached his 50 after struggling for runs in recent weeks, but was then brilliantly run out for 55 by a direct hit from Sharif at backward point to the bowler's end.

Guy Croxford (23) and Sean Ervine (31) briefly attempted to dominate the bowlers, but then Sharif returned to action, despite a painful collision with a metal fence in a vain attempt to save a boundary. He dismissed Ervine, skying a catch to midwicket, and then yorked Macmillan for nought.

Naimur Rahman took three wickets in quick succession, and the Academy were dismissed for 183 in the 49th over, their last five wickets falling for just seven runs. The two outstanding bowlers were Sharif with five for 30 and Naimur with three for 45.

Javed Omar and Al Sahariar opened confidently for Bangladesh, firm in defence and quick to put the bad ball away for powerfully-hit fours. Al Sahariar, who was Bangladesh's first century-maker in first-class cricket, twice came close to taking Campbell Macmillan's head off with powerful straight drives for four. The bowler finally took his revenge by bowling him with a yorker for 28, out of an opening stand of 45.

Apart from Macmillan in spurts, though, the bowling was undemanding. Habibul Bashar was in fine form from the start of his innings, driving and cutting powerfully for a series of boundaries. At one stage he was scoring off almost every ball; Javed, although overshadowed, played well until Butterworth took a fine overhead catch in the covers to dismiss him for 35. Habibul eventually fell to a catch on the midwicket boundary for 79 off 77 balls, including nine fours.

By this time the tourists were within sight of victory on 169 for three. Captain Naimur Rahman (11*) joined Test centurion Aminul Islam (20*) and took the tourists through to victory. Disturbingly, not one of the national players could be seen on the ground to assess their opponents for the international matches beginning on Saturday, which arouses suspicions of overconfidence. They would underestimate Bangladesh at their peril.

[Faisal_Aslam]

Good luck for Bangladesh.
I think Zimbabwe is the team that raise to a good team (like Srilanka)in very less time and the reason is that they make large number of Foreign tours.

I think Bangladesh Team should go as much as possible to other countries then there cricket will imporve fastly..

I wish to see Bangladesh and Pakistan in next world cup final and then it will be a fun....(two muslim teams)


Faisal Aslam

[kaiser_alam]

Mashallah....

Hope they do well in the actual matches. I hear our team has a new coach. Will this be his first appearence?

Inshallah we will do well in this tour...

Wassalam

[runtings1]

update score of first one dayer of bangladesh vs zim

Bangladesh recovers from 15 for 4 and 49 for 6 to reach 151 for 8.

Akram played a slow but useful innings of 35 from 108 balls. Mushfiq played well with 31 from 59 and later Rafique helped BD reach 150 with a 25 ball 22.

Looks like we lost this game, but at least the second one dayer is 2morrow, quick time for revenge from da tigers!!!!

[mhnew]

Campbell hits century in second easy win for Zimbabwe over Bangladesh
John Ward - 8 April 2001

The second One-Day International between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh began under cloudy skies, but with no immediate prospect of rain. Zimbabwe in their 50 overs were able to manage only 230 for seven, but the conditions made fast scoring very difficult; Bangladesh were never able to mount a challenge and were dismissed for 103.



The pitch for the day was closer cut than that for the first match, so was expected to be a little more favourable for batting, although the thick outfield remained a handicap. However, due to the underlying moisture it was again likely to help the seamers early on, and by winning the toss for the second time Bangladesh had the chance to make amends for their error of Saturday and this time put Zimbabwe in to bat. It is unfortunate that on this ground the toss should so often be crucial to the course of the match.

Zimbabwe played the same team, while Bangladesh made the surprising move of dropping their one Test centurion Aminul Islam to bring in all-rounder Mehrab Hossain, in an effort to strengthen their bowling.

Alistair Campbell made a good start by pulling the second ball from Monjurul Islam to the boundary, but when the bowlers put the ball in the right place the batsmen struggled at first. Two fine straight drives by Campbell were so slowed by the outfield that they failed to reach the boundary, and it was obvious that the aerial route would be more profitable if they could avoid the fielders. The bowling was not quite consistently accurate enough to put the batsmen under pressure to score, and the opening pair managed three an over before Whittall (16) holed out to long leg with the score on 49.

As Stuart Carlisle joined Campbell the scoring rate gradually moved up to four, reached at the same time as the century partnership. Runs came in a mixture of steady accumulation and big hits, Carlisle reaching his fifty with a six off the long-suffering Naimur Rahman before skying a big hit to the keeper to depart for 56; 182 for two, and the partnership of 133 was the second-best for Zimbabwe's second wicket in one-day internationals. Alistair Campbell lashed the next ball through extra cover for his seventh Test century, but then holed out to long-on for 103.

Wickets then fell in a flurry as the batsmen were prepared to sacrifice everything in the chase for runs, but with limited success, as the bowlers managed to keep matters under control and the conditions hindered quick scoring. But Bangladesh would have to bat magnificently to win.

However, the Bangladesh top order again failed against the Zimbabwe seamers, two wickets falling for nine runs and four for 41, altogether two umpiring decisions were perhaps dubious: Al-Shahriar's lbw may have been a little high, while Meerab Hossain was caught at the wicket off a ball from Streak that was above shoulder height. Streak in fact had an unimpressive and inconsistent opening spell.

Naimur Rahman (25) tried gallantly to fight his way out of trouble but he chopped a ball from Dirk Viljoen on to his stumps, to make Bangladesh 76 for five. Then came a steady decline, with opening batsman Javed Omar rock-solid at one end and the tail declining steadily. At one stage the scoreboard briefly named the two current batsmen as Omar and Sharif, but the latter (Mohammad of that name) quickly perished without scoring.

The hundred came up with the last pair together but the innings closed for 103 in the 31st over, giving Zimbabwe victory by 127 runs. Omar became the first batsman to carry his bat through an innings against Zimbabwe, and finished on 33.

It was a disappointing two days for Bangladesh, whose great problem was their inexperience. There were perhaps in the region of 3,000 spectators on each day and they had the pleasure of seeing their team win, but the cricket was not the most entertaining, and for that the disappointing state of the ground was largely responsible.