Rony Talukdar’s maiden half-century and Taskin Ahmed’s career-best 4-16 helped Bangladesh to beat Ireland by 22 runs in D/L method in the first of the three-match Twenty20 international series at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram on Monday.
The Tigers couldn’t play out their 20 overs due to rain and finished on 207-5 in 19.2 overs, thanks to a maiden half-century from Rony Talukdar and a whirlwind innings from Liton Das.
Rony made 67 off 38 balls, the third fastest fifty for a Bangladeshi in this format, while Liton struck a quickfire 47 off 23 balls and Shamim Hossain chipped in with a 30 off 20 balls to take the Tigers over the 200-run mark in this format for the third time.
Rain paused the game for nearly two hours but the weather eventually improved and Ireland was set a revised target of 104 from eight overs.
Chasing a challenging but definitely gettable target, Ireland got off to a blistering start, as their openers Paul Stirling and Ross Adair scored 32 runs from the first two overs.
Pacer Hasan Mahmud then slowed down the flow by picking the wicket of Adair (13 off 10 balls) in the third over.
Taskin then swung the tide in Bangladesh’s favour, picking up three wickets in his first over.
The right-arm pacer rattled Lorcan Tucker’s stumps in the first delivery and did the same against the dangerous Stirling just two balls later, removing him for 17 off eight balls.
Taskin struck once again in the following delivery, this time Shamim taking a catch at the boundary to remove George Dockrell for a golden duck.
Harry Tector struck three boundaries to take 16 runs from Hasan’s second over.
But Shakib Al Hasan conceded just five runs and Mustafizur Rahman gave away seven runs in the sixth and seventh over respectively to leave 32 runs for Taskin to defend in the final over.
Taskin claimed his fourth wicket, Harry Tector (19 off 12 balls), and conceded just nine runs to secure a comfortable win for Bangladesh.
His previous best bowling figure in this format was 4-25 against the Netherlands in Hobart, Australia in the last edition of ICC T20 World Cup.
Earlier, the Bangladesh innings got off to a flying start after they were asked to bat first. Openers Liton and Rony took 81 runs in the powerplay, the highest ever by Bangladesh.
Their joint assault ended in the eighth over, when Liton, after hitting four fours and three sixes, got caught by Stirling off Young.
Liton’s departure didn’t deter Rony, as he completed his half-century off 24 balls and formed a couple of more partnerships with Najmul Hossain Shanto and Shamim worth 27 and 36 runs respectively.
Rony’s knock ended in the 14th over, when he got castled by pacer Graham Hume. Hitting boundaries became difficult as the drizzle in Chattogram started getting heavier.
Still skipper Shakib’s unbeaten 20 off 13 balls and Towhid Hridoy’s 13 off eight balls made sure Bangladesh crossed the 200-run mark before the umpires called for the covers.
The second match of the series will take place at the same venue on Wednesday.
