||Desk Report||

The Super Four clash between Bangladesh and Pakistan is well underway at the Sheikh Abu Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, Bangladesh have received another injury blow after Tamim Iqbal’s ouster, as Shakib Al Hasan, too, has been ruled out of the remainder of the tournament.

Soumya Sarkar started for the Tigers replacing Nazmul Hossain in the opening spot. Mominul Haque replaced the Shakib Al Hasan while Rubel Hossain came in for Nazmul Islam.

Winning the toss, Bangladesh chose to bat and faced yet another top-order collapse at the very beginning before Mushfiqur Rahim and Mohammad Mithun put up a crucial 144-run partnership.

Making a return to the ODI team almost after a year, Soumya failed to make a memorable comeback as Junaid Khan, who is playing in place of Mohammad Amir, dismissed him for a duck.

Shaheen Afridi and Junaid Khan then splendidly bowled out Mominul Haque and Liton Das, respectively, as Bangladesh became three down at 12 runs.

Mushfiqur and Mithun then carefully handled the Pakistan pace duo, before successfully taking on the spinners. With a couple of boundary at the latter part of the batting powerplay and a few overs after it, the batting pair ensured that the run rate did not slip down too much.

The two middle-order batsmen kept the score ticking by dealing in one and twos and did not go for any unnecessary shots when the opponents kept them from hitting any boundaries in the middle.

Hasan Ali finally gave Pakistan a breakthrough by taking advantage of Mithun’s late response to his short delivery and caught and bowled the batsman for 60.

Following Mithun’s departure, Imrul Kayes fell cheaply as Shadab Khan trapped him lbw.

Mushfiqur, however, kept fighting like a lone-warrior but missed on his seventh ODI century. He has again played a brilliant knock to pull the Tigers out of danger. However, the right-hander had to stop at 99 as he was caught behind off Shaheen’s delivery.

Together Mahmudullah Riyad and Mehidy Hasan, the two new batsmen at the crease, will now look to add as many runs as possible in the death overs to offer maximum advantage to their team in the must-win clash.

 

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