Bangladesh won the toss in the first game of the day at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala. The Bangladeshi tigers decided to field first. Bangladesh spin bowlers bowl to their line and length to restrict Afghanistan to 156 runs. Skipper, Shakib Al Hasan was the star performer as he often is for the Bangladesh team. Here is a recap of the first innings.
A balanced powerplay
It was a balanced powerplay with the batters dominating early on. Ibrahim Zadram and Rahmanullah Gurbaz took the attack early on against the Bangladeshi pacers. The openers were hardly troubled by Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam and Mustafizur Rahman. In the seventh over, Shakib brought himself into the attack. In just his second over, the skipper took the wicket of Ibrahim Zadran breaking the 50-run opening partnership. There were a couple of brief partnerships of 30 runs. During these partnerships, Gurbaz became the fourth youngest wicket-keeper to score 1,000 runs in ODIs.
Bangladeshi bowlers take control of the innings
Shakib dismissed Rahmat Shah after the pwoerplay and Mehidy Hasan Miraz dismissed the Afghan skipper, Hashmatullah Shahidi. Mehidy Hasan bowled a wicket-maiden 25th over dismmissing Shahidi. In the very next over, Mustafizur dismissed Gurbaz and bowled the second consecutive wicket-maiden over.
Shakib came back for his third spell of the innings in the 29th over and took a wicket in just the fourth ball of his new spell. Najibullah Zadran was dismissed by the Bangladeshi skipper, who picked up his third wicket of the match. In the next over, Taskin Ahmed bowled Mohammad Nabi.
Azmatullah Omarzai batting at number 7 tried to provide some support to the innings but failed to do so and was dismissed after scoring just 22 runs in 20 balls. He was bowled by left-arm spinner, Shoriful Islam. Before Omarzai was dismissed, Mehidy Hasan had picked up his second wicket picking Rashid Khan’s wicket. Mehidy Hasan too picked up his third wicket of the match dismissing Mujeeb ur Rahman. Shoriful picked up the last wicket to dismiss Naveen-ul-Haq. The Bangladeshi spinners picked up eight of the 10 wickets.
