The rain-affected first one-day international between Bangladesh and New Zealand ended with a victory thanks to Will Young’s 2nd ODI century and captain Tom Latham’s master stroke of 92 runs. New Zealand’s combined score of 239/7 proved to be too big for Bangladesh to overcome in a match that was plagued by prolonged rain interruptions and ultimately reduced to 30 overs a side. Although Bangladesh briefly raised the expectation of an interesting chase, they ultimately came up well short.
Bangladesh Vs New Zealand
Interestingly, after choosing to bowl under cloudy skies, the guests made the greatest use of their initial opportunities in the match. After the initial downpour, play started, and Shoriful Islam had the Black Caps struggling at 5/2 at the very end of the initial over despite the weather being very helpful. Rachin Ravindra and Henry Nicholls, both left-handers, dropped deliveries which turned into some deadly deliveries having some interesting outswings.
Before the skies opened up towards the completion of the 14th over, Young and Latham survived a few nerve-wracking instances, one of which involved an unfortunate catch miss that gave Latham another life in the 10th over. A thirty-one-minute delay eliminated ten overs from the match, and then another, further rain delay eliminated ten more overs.
After adjustment of the highest quota, Bangladesh had a few overs remaining from their main bowlers, but Latham as well as Young had only 10.4 overs remaining to add the team’s 108 score when play continued at 16:15 local time. The batting duo got off to an explosive start, each hitting six in a row off Soumya Sarkar. The next over saw Latham take the medium pacer for a hat-trick of fours, so he was in for even harsher treatment. Latham easily defeated Afif Hossain in a slog move to go towards the 90s. However, he failed to reach a century when he pulled a full-length delivery from Mehidy Hasan onto the stumps in the next over.
Young didn’t miss a beat, hitting Mehidy with a six, four, and just one before hitting Sarkar for a quartet of boundaries and reaching the century of his subsequent 82nd delivery. After the interval, New Zealand blasted 131 runs in 10.4 overs, yet during the last two overs, they lost up to four batsmen to run-outs. Despite those terminations, New Zealand posted a commanding total, which DLS revised to require the visiting team to reach 245 in 30 overs.
Bangladesh’s pursuit was off to a poor start when Soumya Sarkar was dismissed after facing only four balls in a row. But Anamul Haque maintained the flow of runs from the other side, making 36 off 33 as the initial 10 overs generated 71 runs.
Then, in consecutive overs, Josh Clarkson, making his debut, struck twice, dismissing Litton Das and Anamul. The game began to slip away quickly as the visitors dropped to 103/5 in the 17th over after Mushfiqur Rahim got out by Rachin Ravindra. Swinging for the fences, Afif Hossain and Towhid Hridoy hit 26 off the following two overs. Before dismissing both of them in consecutive overs, Bangladesh’s expectations were raised by their 56-run partnership in 6.2 overs. Young had the last word in a dominant team effort with a stunning one-handed catch that stretched backwards to cap off a fantastic day.
Opening batsman Anamul Haque of Bangladesh believes that the squad’s inability to take advantage of their frontline bowling options in Dunedin’s final overs of the rain-shortened game caused them to lose their initial ODI in opposition to New Zealand. Due to a lack of quality bowling alternatives for the visitors, the hosts amassed 131 runs in the final 10.4 overs. The opponents were compelled to fill the void by using part-timers, as each bowler was only permitted to bowl a total of six overs.
Young and Latham were keen to take on Mehedy Hasan after they put up a 171-run partnership for the 3rd wicket. Soumya Sarkar conceded sixty-three runs in six overs, and Afif Hossain, meanwhile, gave up 17 runs in the one over he delivered. The offspinner broke the partnership through the elimination of Latham and conceded 53 runs in the span of five costly overs.
“If you look closely, the primary bowlers faced an issue when their overs were restricted,” Anamul said to reporters following the match. “Instead of Shoriful & Mustafizur, we were compelled to utilize the part-timers because a bowler was able to bowl only six overs, so the primary & effective bowlers were left out of the game at the very last moment.
Anamul accepted responsibility for his own actions by not batting for a longer duration after spending a significant amount of playtime in the middle. Before being dismissed for 43 runs, the highest score of the innings, Anamul appeared to be in excellent form.
“I believe that the outcome might have been different if the team had done more preparation, exercised a little bit more patience, and batted for an extended amount of time. We might have achieved the required fifty runs in the final five overs. We had an excellent chance today and got some batting rhythm & made a good stance. We were batting well, and everyone believed we could win the game,” he remarked.