Daily Times

CHATTOGRAM: Rony Talukdar, Litton Das and excellent death bowling form Taskin Ahmed helped Bangladesh beat Ireland and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match T20I series in Chattogram on Monday. The home side won the rain-interrupted game by 22 runs. Talukdar made a rapid 67, adding 91 runs for the opening stand with Litton, who struck 47. The Ireland bowlers struggled to stop the boundary flow on a flat pitch. The play was, however, stopped between 3:37 pm and 5:40 pm local time due to the drizzle. It left the visitors with a revised target of 104 runs to chase in eight overs. They made a fist of it at the start, but Taskin, Hasan Mahmud and Shakib Al Hasan made sure Bangladesh did not let this game slip away from them.

Chasing at 13 runs an over, stand-in captain Paul Stirling and Ross Adair got Ireland off to a quick start. They scored 32 runs off the first two overs bowled by Nasum Ahmed and Mustafizur Rahman. But Bangladesh worked back into the game quickly. Mahmud shot back with three dot balls before yorking Adair for 13. Taskin then doubled down on Bangladesh’s momentum with three wickets in his first over. He cleaned up Lorcan Tucker off the first ball before bowling out Stirling for 17 in the fourth ball. George Dockrell was then caught at third-man for a duck the next ball.

Ireland fought back with 16 runs off Hasan Mahmud in the fifth over. Harry Tector struck three fours in the over, top-edging one delivery and hitting the other two for four cleanly. Shakib followed it up with a superb sixth over, giving away just five runs to bring Bangladesh back into the game. Mustafizur Rahman then bowled a seven-run penultimate over, mixing his cutters with full-length balls that Tector and Gareth Delany couldn’t quite hit. The equation came down to 31 off the last over. Taskin dismissed Tector in the first delivery to complete his four-wicket haul and conceded just nine runs off the final over.

Litton signalled his intent in the first over, hitting Tector for a six over long-on in an 11-run over. Talukdar hit Adair for his first six in the 14-run second over, before Graham Hume pulled things back slightly in the third over. Craig Young went for 16 runs in his first over since returning to international cricket after last year’s groin injury. Litton hammered him for a six over midwicket, before picking him over wide long-off for a four. Legspinner Delany conceded just one six in the fifth over, before Adair got hit for 20 runs in the sixth over. After Litton nearly got caught at cover, Talukdar smashed Adair for a six over long-off and three more fours.

The big over took Bangladesh to 81 for no loss, their highest score in a powerplay in T20Is. It beat their previous best of 76-4 against New Zealand in Dhaka in 2013. Young removed Litton in the eighth over, when he was caught at mid-off after mistiming a drive, having made 47 off 23 balls with seven boundaries including three sixes. The 91-run partnership is now Bangladesh’s highest first wicket stand. Litton’s departure, however, didn’t help Ireland stem the flow of runs for Bangladesh. Talukdar reached his maiden T20I fifty in the ninth over. He took 24 balls with a nicely-timed four through cover-point. Najmul Hossain Shanto struck a six in his 13-ball 14 before Tector had him stumped in the 11th over. Shamim Hossain, promoted to No. 4, smashed Ben White for one of two sixes in the 12th over, which went for 18.

Talukdar struck the other six, a massive hit over midwicket. He fell shortly afterwards missing a slog against Hume, having struck three sixes and seven fours in his 38-ball stay. Shamim was caught in the covers for a 20-ball 30 before Tohwid Hridoy was the fifth man out in the penultimate over. The win was largely set up by Bangladesh’s batters, who put up their third-highest total in T20Is.