Bangladesh thrash Zimbabwe by 8 wickets

Bangladesh showed dominating characters both in bat and bowl as they convincingly defeated Zimbabwe by eight wickets in the first game of the five-match T20 series.

Tanzid Hasan Tamim and Towhid Hridoy played entertaining innings while chasing 125 runs at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram on Friday, overtaking the target keeping 28 balls in hand.

The rain arrived twice taking a shortest break but did not last long, and the game resumed to have a result. Skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto added 21 runs on the board.

Blessing Muzarabani and Luke Jongwe took one wicket each for Zimbabwe.

Earlier, Bangladeshi bowlers came up with devastating spells to bowl Zimbabwe out for a meager score of 124 runs. The trio – Taskin Ahmed, Mohammad Saifuddin and Mahedi Hasan – tightly bowled, forcing the visitors to lose all of their wickets.

Being asked to bat, Zimbabwe started well but all of a sudden lost momentum offering six wickets within just five runs, standing at 41/7 after 7.4 overs.

However, Zimbabwe did not let it go so easily as Clive Madande and Wellington Masakadza made a 75-run stand in the eighth wicket which provided them to post a below per score of 124 runs losing all wickets after 20 overs.

Taskin and Saifuddin bagged three wickets each for Bangladesh while Mahedi Hasan got two.

Playing XIs

Bangladesh: Litton Das(w), Tanzid Hasan, Najmul Hossain Shanto(c), Towhid Hridoy, Mahmudullah, Jaker Ali, Mahedi Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Rishad Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin.

Zimbabwe: Joylord Gumbie(w), Craig Ervine, Brian Bennett, Sean Williams, Sikandar Raza(c), Clive Madande, Luke Jongwe, Wellington Masakadza, Ryan Burl, Blessing Muzarabani, Richard Ngarava.