A vigorous Mashrafe Bin Mortaza sent dangerman Chris Gayle back to the dressing room early for the second successive occasion and the West Indies suffered a middle-order jolt, but through it all Marlon Samuels scored a sensible hundred to help the visitors bounce back in the five-match ODI series with a four-wicket victory over Bangladesh in the third match at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur last night.
The ‘Narail Express’ also got the wicket of Samuels but it was too late for the Tigers, especially after the right-hander had put pacer Rubel Hossain to the sword in the 45th over. The dashing batsman smote two sixes after smashing three consecutive boundaries and this fateful over — before which 34 were needed off 36 deliveries — drained all the excitement in a match that seemed to be going down to the wire as the Bangladesh slow bowlers put pressure on the West Indies batsmen on a pitch where the spinners got huge turn.
Samuels’s fantastic hundred once again proved how the West Indies batting is dependent on its two stalwarts and it showed that the duo’s failure in the first two games in Khulna was the main reason behind their heavy defeats. West Indies were also helped by the fact that their other star player, mystery spinner Sunil Narine, finally put in a dominant performance to take four wickets earlier.
One might think, looking at the final scoreline, that it was an easy victory for the visitors but the truth was that the West Indies had to fight hard to keep the series alive and it was Samuels, their hero in the World Twenty20 triumph, who made it possible by playing brilliantly as he mixed aggression with calmness on a pitch where batting was not easy. He put together a 111-run second-wicket partnership with opener Kieran Powell, who scored 47, to lay the platform for victory after Gayle’s early dismissal.
Things however could have been different had Mashrafe managed to cling on to a catch offered by Samuels at slip off the bowling of part-time left-arm spinner Mominul Haque when the batsman was on 96 and West Indies on 187 for five in the 42nd over.
Riding on the 149-ball 126 by Samuels, who clobbered 17 boundaries and two sixes, West Indies achieved the target of 228 runs with three overs to spare. Before the match, which was a day-night affair, there had been much discussion about the trouble the dew might cause to the spinners, but still the Bangladesh bowlers gave the opposition batsmen enough trouble, keeping the match alive till the 45th over.
But in the end the Tigers would definitely have felt that they were a few runs short in their total to seal the series with two matches in hand. And the bowling of the West Indies slow bowlers, especially spinner Narine, and some poor shot selection dashed Bangladesh’s hope of posting a challenging target on a difficult pitch.
Tamim Iqbal and young Anamul Haque gave a steady start but Narine halted the momentum and turned it in West Indies’ favour by claiming two wickets, that of Tamim and Naeem Islam, in his third over. After that Bangladesh were reduced to 110 for five and many doubted whether Bangladesh would cross the 200-mark but Mahmudullah Riyad joined his captain Mushfiqur Rahim to revive the innings.
But Mushfiqur played a suicidal shot to mark a premature end to the 58-run sixth-wicket partnership. The skipper unnecessarily played an aggressive shot at a wrong time, going for the slog-sweep against left-arm spinner Veerasammy Permaul only to top-edge it high and easy for the point fielder, his opposite number Darren Sammy.
Mushfiqur made 38 runs but his deputy Mahmudullah completed his half-century and the right-hander’s 70-ball 52, which featured three fours and a six, helped the home side post a decent total.
Eventually the total did not help them to fulfil their dream of winning the series early but they are still in a good position with a 2-1 lead. They may have lost the match, but the spirit shown in fighting to defend a modest score should stand them in good stead in the last two matches.
Source: The Daily Star
