A captain’s knock of 110 runs from Tom Latham and important contributions from Devon Conway and James Neesham in the middle order helped New Zealand clinch the ODI series against Bangladesh in Christchurch.
Chasing a target of 272 runs set by Bangladesh on the back of a much-improved batting performance after a debacle in the first game, the hosts were in trouble early on.
The openers Martin Guptill and Henry Nicholls started off on dominating note just like in the first game when they were chasing a low score. However, the target of 272 needed one of them to go big with the bat, and they failed to take New Zealand off to a brilliant start.
An off-cutter that has been Mustafizur’s signature delivery over the years found Guptill playing a back of a length delivery early and the pacer had enough time in his hands to run back and carry out a caught and bowled.
Off-spinner Mahedi Hasan has had an unpleasant start to his ODI career in the last game, but he was eager to make amends this time around. After enticing a false big shot from Nicholls that saw the left-hander losing his leg stump, he got the better of Will Young. The highly-promising batsman was trying to paddle the ball round the corner of an off-spinner that turned ever so slightly and his stumps along with the Blackcaps’ chasing efforts were rattled.
Young failed to cash in on the opening created by injury to Ross Taylor and the onus of resurrecting the Blackcaps fell on the shoulders of an ever so impressive youngster Devon Conway and stand-in captain Tom Latham. In between the wickets of Nicholls and Young, Conway made his intentions clear with two dismissive pull shots that went rapidly towards the ropes.
As soon as there were two left-handers in Conway and Tom Latham together at the crease, skipper Tamim Iqbal switched to the off-spinning twin of Mahedi Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz. The move paid dividends in the short run as the next four over yielded only 13 runs and the batsmen had to do something to keep the scoreboard going. Latham found a length to find a release shot towards the midwicket boundary in the fifth over of the partnership. But, the sluggishnes continued for some more time before the skipper found another boundary with sublime timing once again against the turn.
Iqbal brought back the pace of Taskin Ahmed and New Zealand kept on batting without panicking in search of boundaries. The duo added 113 runs in the middle overs and kept the runs coming for the Blackcaps at a decent run rate.
The duo joined each other in just the 11th over of the chase when the Blackcaps were in need of more than 200 runs, and by the time Conway departed in the 34th over, the hosts were just around 100 runs away from the target and a series win that was to huge in the absence of Kane Williamson and Ros Taylor.
Conway’s run out provided Bangladesh with an opportunity to get back in the game. However, they did not help themselves by dropping two very easy catches. First, Mushfiqur Rahim dropped a dolly when Neesham poked at a wider delivery from Taskin, while the well-set Latham was handed a reprieve by Mahedi who until that point was having an excellent day with the ball.
The run rate even after the two dropped catches were above six runs per over and Bangladesh would have hoped for another chance from the hosts. Latham was batting in sublime touch to hand them any more opportunity and he took Tasin away for 18 runs in the 38th over to dictate his intentions in the worst possible terms to the tourists.
Few quiet overs followed and the run rate surged past the 7.5 runs per over mark as Bangladesh brought Mustafizur back in the death overs to defend the game. He fulfilled the first goals of dismissing Neesham to create another opening for his team, but Latham kept on piercing gaps to keep the tourists at bay and in the end notched up a well-deserving hundred that turned out to be a match and series-winning one at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch.
Earlier in the day, New Zealand skipper Tom Latham won the toss and elected to bowl first in hope of replicating the bowler bowling performance of the first game. His move was vindicated very early when Matt Henry dismissed Liton Das off an innocuous short delivery.
The next man in Soumya Sarkar batted cautiously with Tamim Iqbal before the skipper stepped on the accelerator and sent Henry towards the fence three times in his fourth over. Sarkar, too found timely boundaries and stabilised Bangladesh’s batting effort and made sure they won’t have to go through the chaos that marred them in the last game.
However, he could not convert his start to a big one and fell to a superb stumping down the leg side off Mitchell Santner. His wicket brought the experienced duo of Mushfiqur Rahim and Iqbal at the crease together and the left-arm spinner was put under pressure by his match up Iqbal.
The duo steadied the ship nicely with frequent boundaries and Iqbal was shaping up nicely towards the three-figure mark before a football skill from Neesham found the skipper short of the crease and the great work between him and Mushfiqur was undone.
Mohammed Mithun joined Mushfiqur in the middle and was at the game proactively. Bouncer from Neesham was smashed over square leg boundary while Santner too was dismissed on regular intervals. However, the left-arm spinner came back strongly to see the back of Mushfiqur Rahim and ask questions from Mithun on the way he wanted to take the innings forward.
There was no looking back from Mithun as the last nine overs of Bangladesh’ batting efforts after Mushfiqur’s wicket yielded 87 runs. Mithun was helped amicably by lower-order batsmen and he needed the innings with a 57-ball-73 to guide the team to a defendable total.
New Zealand have won the three-match series by 2-0 with an ODI remaining to be played in Wellington. The hosts will be pleased to win the series without Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson, while for the tourists, the series will be another opportunity missed and they have no one but only themselves to blame for the loss in this series.