Bangladesh bowler Rishad Hossain with his impressive triple wicket haul restricted Afghanistan for 115 runs in a crucial game at St Vincent.
Bangladesh was scheduled to face Afghanistan to play the 52nd match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 on June 24 in Arnos Vale Ground, Kingstown, St Vincent.
A victory in the game will promote Afghanistan for the semi-finals round while a victory for Bangladesh under certain conditions would make them qualify for the semis. If Bangladesh won and failed to tick the conditions, Australia would advance to the semifinal.
Afghan batters who used to execute impressive knocks against their opponents struggled a bit today and ended up scoring just 115 in their batting inning. Rishad Hossain played a massive role in containing the team under 120.
BREAKTHROUGH FOR BANGLADESH! 👊🏻#RishadHossain strikes and gets Afghanistan’s #IbrahimZadran caught, right after both openers registered the most runs for a pair in a single edition of a #T20WorldCup! 🙌🏻
P.S.: #Australia fans would want Bangladesh to consolidate from here! 😉… pic.twitter.com/wZyFvi4kOa
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) June 25, 2024
Speaking of the match, Afghanistan decided to bat first after winning the toss while Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zardan opened the inning.
Batting first, Afghnas made a slow start like they did against Australia and gave importance to building the partnership which could fire during the second half of the inning. the duo managed to score only 27 runs in their first powerplay and was expected to make an explosive batting attack.
But Bangladesh’s tight bowling spell struggled the Afghan openers which made them score only 58 runs at the end of 10 overs. With 50 runs stand, Ibrahim Zadran and Rahmanullah Gurbaz registered the most fifty-plus stands for Afghanistan in T20Is (any wicket).
Rishad Hossain in the 11th over finally broke the long-standing opening partnership by dismissing Ibrahim Zadran for 18 runs. With the dismissal, Afghans started to struggle with a dip in the run rate.
With 13 off the 14th over, Afghanistan managed to score 80 runs for a wicket loss at the end of 15 overs. With back-to-back wickets and a brilliant 19th over from Mustafizur Rahman, Afghanistan scored 100 runs at the end of 19 overs.
With a couple of sixes from Rashid Khan in the final over, Afghanistan scored 115 runs for 5 wickets loss at the end of 20 overs.
While chasing, Bangladesh made a delightful start and failed to continue the momentum. Litton Das scored an impressive 13 runs in the first over but his batting partner Tanzid Hasan lost his wicket in the following over.
Fazalhaq Farooqi made the early breakthrough by trapping Tanzid in an LBW dismissal. Naveen-ul-Haq in the next over, made a huge drama by dismissing Shanto and Shakib in back-to-back deliveries.
The rain interrupted the game in the middle of the fourth over and halted the game for a bit longer. Bangladesh scored 31 runs for 3 wickets in 3.2 overs at the time.
