ZIMBABWE senior men’s national cricket team got off their tour of Bangladesh to a poor start following an eight wickets defeat in the first T20I of the five-match series at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattorgram on Friday evening.
After they were asked to bat first, the Chevrons had a disastrous batting show before Clive Madande and Wellington Masakadza brought back some sanity to see them finish on 124 runs all out in 20 overs. Despite a couple of rain delays, the Tigers managed to comfortably chase down the target in 15,2 overs, finishing on 126/2.
The Chevrons had the worst possible start to the match, losing an early wicket of veteran Craig Ervine for a two-ball duck in the third over with the team on 8/1. Debutant, Joylord Gumbie was the next to fall for 17 runs off 14 balls after a 28-run second wicket partnership with Brian Bennett, who was run out two balls later on 16 runs after facing 15 deliveries.
After losing the top order for just 36 runs in 5,1 overs, captain Sikandar Raza, Sean Williams and Ryan Burl failed to come to the party, all falling for golden ducks in quick succession. Zimbabwe found themselves in trouble on 38/6 in just 6,2 overs.
However, gallant knocks from Madande and Masakadza made sure that the Chevrons breach the 100-run mark. Madande fell one run short of equaling his career best score in T20I as he was bowled on 43 runs from 39 balls while Masakadza made 34 runs off 38 deliveries.
Madande, Masakadza, Gumbie and Bennett were the only Zimbabwean batters that managed to cross double figures with the rest failing to score more than three runs. Taskin Ahmed and Mohammad Saifuddin did the damage with the ball for the hosts, taking three wickets apiece for 14 and 15 runs respectively both in four overs.
After a disastrous batting display, errors continued into the second innings of the match with the Chevrons being sloppy on the field. They dropped catches while also having misfields in a match that they were defending a below par score.
There was a slight rain in the third over of the match’s second innings with Bangladesh on 10/1 after three overs. There was yet a second rain delay with Bangladesh needing 81 runs to win in 76 balls.
Play managed to resume and no overs were lost and the Tigers managed to easily cruise to victory. The only two wickets that fell were taken by Blessing Muzarabani and Luke Jongwe.
Bangladesh’s debutant, Tanzid Hasan was dropped three times and went on to punish the Chevrons with an unbeaten 67 runs off 47 balls. Towhid Hridoy also finished unbeaten on 33 runs off 18 balls while Najmul Hossain Shanto fell for 21 runs from 24 deliveries.
The second match of the series is scheduled for Sunday at the same venue.
Chronicle
