Just as he picked up the wicket of Richard Ngarava on the fifth delivery of the 29th over of Zimbabwe innings to win the game for his country by a huge margin of 155 runs, Shakib Al Hasan recorded his third five-wicket haul in ODI cricket. The 34-year-old all-rounder is now also the proud record holder for most wickets by a Bangladeshi bowler in ODIs.
Shakib surpassed former Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Mortaza’s previous record of 269 wickets by taking the wicket of Brendan Taylor, which was his first wicket of the game and 270th of the 213 matches long ODI career which has all signs of extending up to the next 3-4 years.
Apart from Shakib, Mohammad Saifuddin, Taskin Ahmed and Shoriful Islam picked one wicket each to reduce the hosts to 121-9. Since Timycen Maruma got injured while fielding, he could not come out to bat and the Zimbabwean innings ended at this lowly score to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
The chase never got going for Taylor’s men as they kept losing wickets by playing lose shots. Nobody seemed to settle down as wicket-keeper batsman Regis Chakabva top-scored with 54 while Taylor himself scored a free-flowing 24 before a bad shot saw his demise.
Earlier in the day, Bangladesh reached a more than competitive total of 276 thanks to a brilliant century by Liton Das and some late order hitting by Afif Hossain and Mehidy Hasan Miraz. Bangladesh were in a lot of trouble at 74-4 when Liton got together with Mahmudullah and stitched a 93 run partnership to provide much-needed stability to the innings.
While Afif scored a 35 ball 45, Miraz and Mahmudullah recorded 26 and 33 against their names respectively. Das, who scored a scintillating 102 off 114 balls was adjudged Man of the Match at Harare Sports Club.
The two teams will next meet each other at the same venue on Sunday, July 18 with Zimbabwe trying to stay in the series with a victory and Bangladesh looking to wrap up yet another series win.