ICC World Cup 2019: Match 23, Windies vs Bangladesh – Who Said What

Bangladesh managed to thump Windies for the first time in the history of the World Cup. The team, captained by Mashrafe Mortaza, won by seven wickets and with 51 deliveries to spare at the Cooper Associates County Ground in Taunton. Moreover, the Tigers moved to the fifth position on the table. For the Jason Holder-captained Windies, their campaign has gone into a slump as they have now lost three games.

Windies put up a significant score

Bearing in mind the playing conditions, Bangladesh didn’t hesitate to field first. The decision didn’t backfire initially as Mohammad Saifuddin got rid of the hulk-like Chris Gayle, who couldn’t open his account after 13 balls. Evin Lewis and Shai Hope injected momentum into the innings with a stand of 116 runs. Lewis got to his fifty off 58 deliveries. Shakib Al Hasan broke the partnership, dismissing Lewis for a 67-ball 70.

Nicholas Pooran smacked two fours and a six to score 25 after which Shakib got him as well. Shai Hope took his time and brought up his half-century off 75 balls. Shimron Hetmyer went hammer and tongs to notch 50 off 26 and his knock was laced with four boundaries and three sixes. Mustafizur Rahman picked up his prized scalp. In the same over, the left-arm seamer removed Andre Russell for a duck.

Hope seemed set for an ODI ton, but unfortunately, he perished to Mustafizur after getting 96 off 21 with four fours and a six. However, skipper Holder churned out some lusty blows to score 33 off 15 with four boundaries and two of sixes. Darren Bravo cleared the ropes two times and took the Windies to 321. For Bangladesh, Saifuddin and Mustafizur were the most successful with three wickets each.

Tamim and Liton dominate

Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar put on 52 runs off 8.2 overs to take the Tigers off to a flying start. Sarkar threatened with a 23-ball 29, but Russell got his number. Tamim Iqbal got his rhythm back and scored 48 runs off 53 balls with six fours. A stupendous reflex action throw from Sheldon Cottrell led to his dismissal. Mushfiqur Rahim couldn’t make an impact and got out for one to pacer Oshane Thomas.

Thereafter, it became evident that Shakib had to see his team through. The Jessore-born all-rounder accomplished 6,000 ODI runs. He didn’t look flustered and brought up his half-century off 40 deliveries. The veteran raced away to his ninth ODI century off 83 deliveries. He also became the second Bangladesh batsman after Mahmudullah to score two centuries in a single edition of the World Cup.

At the other end, Liton Das played his strokes freely and turned out to be an appropriate foil for Shakib. He smacked Shannon Gabriel for three consecutive sixes to make the contest a one-sided affair. Liton and Shakib’s fourth wicket partnership fetched a staggering 189 runs. Even as Shakib remained not out on 124 off 99, Liton pulled off 94 off 69. Bangladesh chased the mammoth target down in 41.3 overs.

Shakib Al Hasan, the Player of the Match, said

“It feels great. To stay at the wicket till the end was the most satisfying thing. I have been working on batting for the last one and a half months, and it has paid off. At the end of the first innings, we believed that if we bat well we can win. It was a reasonable total posted by the West Indies.

Not sure why I backed myself for the No. 3 spot (laughs), but I thought if I batted at 3 I will get more opportunities and more time in the middle. If I bat at 5, I will get in at the 30th over or something, and that’s not ideal for me honestly. Mehidy contributed with the ball. I have contributed with the ball too, but I think I can get better than this. We have to bring our A-game against Australia at the top of their form. I hope the fans will keep supporting us, and they have been magnificent throughout the World Cup.”

Mashrafe Mortaza, the Bangladesh captain, said

“As I said yesterday, we still have a chance to go but we need to win all the matches. My knees were hurting a bit, but we have enough bowlers to bowl in the death so it’s not much of a worry. I think the turning point was the two wickets that Mustafizur got, Russell getting out in the first over.

Shakib has delivered for the team in this World Cup. Hopefully he will keep going and the rest of the boys will join him. Mushy was outstanding in the first two games, Tamim was excellent today and Soumya got a good start as well. Liton has normally batted at in the top three and it was a tough ask for him to bat at number five, but he did the job.”

Jason Holder, the Windies captain, said:

“Think its a bit of both. We were around 40-50 runs short, the wicket played well the entire day just that we didn’t get enough runs. Having said that, we could have been a lot more disciplined with the ball and we let ourselves down in the field as well. Would have been a little challenging in the first ten overs after losing the toss and being asked to bat. Having said that, we got through the first 10 overs reasonably well.

We were in a situation where we just didn’t get the momentum as we probably should in the middle-overs with the bat and we had too much to do in the back-end. As I said before if you score 320 here, you gotta fight really hard in the field to defend it. We didn’t get wickets, and also we let one or two chances slip. We tried to hit the top of the stumps and do it consistently. But there is no excuse, we should have been a lot more disciplined. We have got other games to play and from hereon everything is virtually a final for us and we have to be more clinical.”