Bangladesh return to victory after landing in Mirpur’s spin heaven

Sports Desk

The wicket was pitch black, the soil was coming out of the spikes of the boots. The Bangladesh men’s cricket team showed their strength on such a poor quality wicket. They defeated the West Indies by a huge margin of 74 runs.

Bangladesh had lost 11 of their last 12 ODIs. They returned home after being whitewashed by Afghanistan. However, that was only a hint due to the wicket and conditions. Mehedi Hasan’s Miraj team batted first and scored 207 runs on the board. Then Rishad Hossain’s record-breaking spell restricted the opposition to 133 runs.

The Caribbean team was threatening Bangladesh by scoring 51 for no wickets in the chase. However, their game was over as the ball got old. Rishad kept picking up wickets one after another. Except for the two openers Brandon King (44) and Alik Athanase (27), no one else could settle down.

Rishad set a record for the best spell in ODIs among domestic spinners, taking 6 wickets for 35 runs. The leg-spinner also scored 26 off 13 balls with the bat, making him the man of the match.

Bangladesh were in danger after losing the toss and opting to bat, losing 2 wickets for 8 runs. Then, Nazmul Hossain Shanto scored 32, Towhid Hridoy scored 51 and Mahidul Islam Ankan scored 41 runs to help the home team cross the 200-mark. On a very slow wicket, these runs were enough to win.

With this win, Bangladesh team took a 2-1 lead in the three-match series.