Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan celebrate after taking a wicket during Match 3 between Bangladesh and Afghanistan at HPCA Stadium in Dharamshala on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI
Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz exploited a slightly tacky pitch to the hilt to restrict Afghanistan to a meagre 156 in their World Cup opener here on Saturday.
Shakib and Miraz shared six wickets among them as Afghanistan spectacularly imploded, as only Rahmanullah Gurbaz (47 off 62 balls) offered some token fight.
However, there was no sign of such a collapse when Afghanistan were comfortably placed at 112 for two in the 25th over.
Gurbaz and skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi were consolidating their third-wicket alliance, but the pace-spin combination of Mustafizur Rahman and Miraz rocked Afghanistan with two wickets in five balls.
Miraz was the first to come to the party. Shahidi, who was struggling to force pace against spinners, finally went for a desperate big shot off the off-spinner that was snaffled by Towhid Hridoy at mid-on.
Gurbaz too soon departed as his attempt to clear Rahman ended in the hands of Tanzid Hasan in the deep.
From that point, the Afghans slipped into a panic mode, and lost wickets at regular intervals as Bangladesh bowlers mounted pressure on them with a tidy spell.
Shakib’s performance too deserve a special mention. The Bangladesh captain, who elected to field first, led the bowlers from the front with an impeccable show of spin bowling.
The veteran left-arm spinner is expected to lead Bangladesh’s bowling effort in this tournament, and Shakib showed that he is ready for the task with a fine display on this day.
The Afghanistan batsmen, who has a reasonable amount of experience in tackling spin, failed to read him either off the hand or off the pitch.
The dismissal of Najibullah Zadran underlined that point. Zadran failed to read a ball that came along with the hand and held its line.
The ball went past his tentative push to rattle the stumps, and Afghanistan were in all sorts of trouble.
Lineups:
Bangladesh: Tanzid Hasan, Litton Das, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Shakib Al Hasan (captain), Mushfiqur Rahim, Towhid Hridoy, Mahmudullah, Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Mustafizur Rahman.
Afghanistan: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (captain), Mohammad Nabi, Najibullah Zadran, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Naveen-ul-Haq, Fazalhaq Farooqi.