Bangladesh v Zimbabwe: 3rd ODI Review: ‘An emphatic Banglawash indeed’

As much as a dead rubber this match seemed to be, the match at the Sher-e-Bangla phased out well. Beginning with a 276 by Bangladesh and a hopeful fightback by Zimbabwe, this was a good match to watch. A victory in this series would ensure Bangladesh winning many 4 series in a row at home with two whitewashes against Zimbabwe and a win to Zimbabwe would give them their lost pride and confidence back.

For the first time in this series, Bangladesh won the toss but the gameplay remained the same with Bangladesh opting to bat first. There was a slight change in the openers with Litton Das being pushed down the order. It was a good move by the skipper as he wanted a great foundation at the beginning at the innings allowing the batsmen to come, to settle well and set a good target to the visitors. As the doctor ordered, both Imrul Kayes and Tamim Iqbal played in a solid partnership of 147 with each of them scoring 73. Sikandar Raza got the first dismissal taking the scalp of the dangerous Imrul Kayes whose innings consisted of 6 fours and four sixes. Tamim Iqbal soon followed his fellow opener with 173 on board. Sadly the middle order collapsed when Litton Das, Sabbir Rahman and Nasir Hossain fell in the space of 11 balls. A resistance by Mahmudullah who scored a much needed 52 and a quick fire 16 by Mortaza in the end, got the hosts to reach a decent score of 276/9. They would’ve expected a score of 300+ when the openers were batting steadily but a late comeback by the Zimbabwean bowlers got them to down to a score 276. It was great to see a perfect comeback from Imrul Kayes who scored two consecutive 50+ scores trying to cement his place in the ODI team.

All-rounder Luke Jongwe and Graeme Cremer took two wickets each albeit a little late for Zimbabwe. It can be said as a poor captaincy by Elton Chigumbura as he failed to rotate the bowlers to unsettle the batsmen and also place the fielders at the right positions. Sikandar Raza’s bowling went for waste as the two opportunities he produced were wasted as there was no slips placed but from the very beginning the bowlers failed to produce many chances like the previous ODIs and Bangladeshi batsmen fancied their chances to give the visitors a good target of 277.

The Bangladesh innings consisted of a controversy involving the umpire Aleem Dar, Mahmudullah and the Zimbabwean wicket keeper. Mahmudullah drived one off to Sikandar Raza at covers and called Mashrafe Mortaza on the other side for a run. When the non-striker opposed, he tried to run back but Raza had thrown at the stumps and Mahmudullah was way back and Zimbabwe started celebrating assuming he was out by a long mile. But what they didn’t know was the wicketkeeper Chakabva had knocked the bails off before the ball hit the stumps. Technically, Mahmudullah had to be declared not out. But the ball had hit the stumps after Chakabva had hit the bails off, hadn’t it? But then Zimbabwe was pointed out that the ball was declared dead when Aleem Dar had made his decision so Mahmudullah couldn’t be given out. The incident was resolved on-field with Mashrafe Mortaza and Elton Chigumbura shaked hands with each other.

Coming to the second innings, the opening pair remained the same with Chakabva and Chibhabha opening their innings like the 2^nd ODI. The strategy failed once again as Chibhabha was back in the pavilion in the second ball of the first over itself. There was a small partnership of 38 with Craig Ervine before Chakabva fell to the brilliant pacer, Mustafizur Rahman. Soon even Craig Ervine fell to Sabbir Rahman. Elton Chigumbura then walked in hoping to build a partnership with Sean Williams. The partnership of 80 was given a breakthrough when Sabbir Rahman got the trump card of Zimbabwe, Elton Chigumbura for a score of 45. He was the only batsman from Zimbabwe to score three 40+ scores in this ODI Series.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t convert any of these starts to big ones. When Waller next fell to Arafat Hossain with 186 on board, Zimbabwe still required 91 of 86 balls which was still a gettable score if Zimbabwe settled in, rotated the strike and play the odd balls to the fence, they had the chance of winning the last ODI encounter between the sides. But like always after the fall of Chigumbura’s wicket and the rare face saving innings of 64 by Sean Williams there was nothing delivered by the Zimbabwean batsmen. Wickets kept tumbling and they lost the match by 61 runs and the series was comprehensively won by Bangladesh. They’ll hope to come back good in the shortest format in the upcoming 2-match T20 series against the hosts.

The bowling of Bangladesh was brilliant with just a few errors. Led by their amazing find of this year and who’s just in his ‘career infancy’ Mustafizur Rahman who picked up his 3^rd fifer and a wicket each to Mashrafe Mortaza, Nasir Hossain, A Hossain, A Sunny and Sabbir Rahman, Bangladesh ruthlessly finished off Zimbabwe.

The highest scorer for Bangladesh for the series was Mushfiqur Rahim with 156 to his tally, averaging 52.00 and his highest being 101. Elton Chigumbura, the skipper of the visitors was their highest scorer with 133 runs averaging 44.33 and his highest score was 47.

The highest wicket taker for Bangladesh was Mustafizur Rahim who finished up with 8 wickets in this series, with his best of 5-34 in this match. Tinashe Panyangara picked up 5 scalps in the series with 3-41 being his best performance.

In the end, Bangladesh won the match by 61 runs and the series 3-0 and Zimbabwe will look for their first wins and the Bangladesh will eye for another clean sweep in the T20 Series starting from November 13.

Brief Scores: 

Bangladesh: 276-9 (Tamim Iqbal 73, Imrul Kayes 73, Luke Jongwe 2/50, G Cremer 2/53) 

Zimbabwe: 128 (Sean Williams 64, Elton Chigumbura 45, Mustafizur Rahman 5/34, Sabbir Rahman 1/12)

Awards in the post-match presentation 

Man of the Match: Tamim Iqbal

Bangladeshi Player of the Match (People’s Choice): Mustafizur Rahman

Highest Bangladeshi Scorer of the series: Mushfiqur Rahim

Man of the Series: Mushfiqur Rahim