BAN vs AFG | Afif Hossain’s maiden half century paves way for Bangladesh’s turnaround in 1st ODI

Afif Hossain scored his maiden half century and went up to remain undefeated at 93 to grant Bangladesh an unlikely victory on Wednesday, 23 February at Chattogram, Bangladesh. The talented left-hander alongside Mehidy Hasan Miraz put together an incredible 174* run stand for the 7th wicket to win the nail-biting game from a precarious position.

Needing a paltry 216 runs to win in the second innings, Bangladesh were looking to make easy work out of the situation, but were slapped back into reality after young Fazalhaq Farooqui rattled the top order.

The young Afghan took four wickets in the first five overs, cleaning up the entire Bangladesh top order for just 18 runs, stamping his authority on the game. Farooqui’s pace off the pitch and little hints of movement here and there troubled the entire order and established players like Tamim Iqbal found him hard to negotiate.

After Farooqui was done feasting on the top order, spin twins Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan weaved their magic and got two huge wickets of Mahmudullah and Shakib Al Hasan in quick succession. Just when things looked in the bag for the visitors, captain Hashmatullah Shahidi made a big mess of things by keeping relaxed fields and bowling his fifth bowling option in the game.

Credit should not be taken away from Afif and Mehidy though, who stuck by the tough phase of play negotiation Rashid Khan and brought Bangladesh back in the game by stabilising the innings. Once they had seen Rashid through, both batsmen proceeded carefully to put away bad balls and keep the scoreboard ticking with singles.

The game plan was to have smaller goals in the middle and take the match over by over since the scoreboard pressure was not there. At the end, this led to both batsmen playing 225 balls between them for the highest 7th wicket stand in Bangladesh’s ODI history and giving them a victory by the margin of 7 balls.

Earlier in the day, Bangladesh pacers brought in their full arsenal of pace on and pace off deliveries to skittle Afghanistan for a paltry 215 runs. Mustafizur Rahman was the star of the show and picked three wickets. Shakib Al Hasan and Taskin Ahmed did fairly great as well and picked up two wickets to their names. However, it was Mehidy Hasan that actually choked the opposition with his tight lines and finished his 10 overs with three maidens and 28 runs, although without getting a wicket. For Afghanistan, barring Najibullah Zadran, no player capitalised on the starts and that meant that they were at least short by 30-40 runs in the wicket.

Hasan was adjudged the man of the match for his exceptional control over the game and in the post match interview heaped praises on Afif for his ability to play in tough conditions. Hasan said that when he found it difficult to get going, Afif’s stroke play eased the pressure in the game.

Bangladesh will be hoping to bounce off this incredible victory and seal the three-match series in the very next game. Captain Tamim Iqbal looked very pleased with the duo's efforts in the middle and explained that at a point he did not believe that Bangladesh could actually win the game. He hoped that Bangladesh can translate this into more amazing performances running up to the World Cup year.