Mahmudullah Riyadh produced an all-round effort to guide hosts Bangladesh to a comprehensive 51-run win against United Arab Emirates in the Asia Cup T20 tournament, on Friday.
Batting first, Bangladesh managed only 133 for eight largely due to rearguard action from Man-of-the-Match Mahmudullah, who scored a quickfire 36 off 27 balls with the help of a boundary and two sixes.
However, UAE’s batting faltered once again as they produced a below-par effort to get bowled out for 82 in only 17.4 overs. Mahmudullah took 2/5 along with a brilliant catch to make it a memorable outing for him.
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Skipper Mashrafe Mortaza (2/12), left-arm seamer Mustafizur Rahaman (2/13 in 4 overs), Shakib Al Hasan (2/20) and Al-Amin Hossain (1/8) were also amongst wickets.
It was a day where Mahmudullah showed his all-round skills taking a smart diving catch at gully to dismiss Shaiman Anwar off Mortaza’s bowling.
The UAE’s chase again started on a disastrous note as Muhammaed Kaleem (0) provided an easy catch to Mortaza standing at mid—on.
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Rohan Mustafa (18) hit a six behind square off Taskin Ahmed but his lack of footwork was exposed by Mortaza as his attempted slash over point only ballooned up to Mustafizur at short third man.
Mustafizur himself could have claimed a hat-trick taking wickets with well-disguised slower ones in the first and second deliveries off the eighth over.
The match was over in the 8th over when the dismissal of Mohammed Shahzad (12) and Swapnil Patil (0) made it 34 for five and there was no looking back after that.
Mahmudullah and Shakib then polished the lower order to give Bangladesh their first victory in the tournament.
However, there is room for improvement as far as their batting is concerned. Save Mohammed Mithun’s 41-ball 47 and Mahmudullah’s cameo, there was not much to write home about home team’s batting which will be tested further against better bowling attacks.