Dhaka – Bangladesh started their away campaign with a three-wicket loss in a rain-hit warm-up game against New Zealand XI at Cobham Oval, Whangarei on Thursday. The one-day ‘tour game’ was curtailed to 43-over-a-side as par DL method due to rain, where Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat first to score 245 for 8 in the stipulated over.New Zealand XI chased down the target scoring 247 for 7 in 41.4 overs, spurred by the Ben Horne’s unbeaten innings of 60 runs,UNB news agency reported.Despite this loss, there were materials to celebrate for Bangladesh side as the sensational pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman, who was adjudged the ICC Emerging Cricketer of the Year 2016, took the field with confident in a competitive game after around five months later, recovering from shoulder surgery following a shoulder injury.The left arm pacer delivered seven-over and picked up two wickets — Ryan Duffy and Henry Shipley — to resume his wicket haul mastery. Bangladesh innings glittered with Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah Riyad (retired not out) and Soumya Sarkar getting their forms to score 45, 43 and 40 runs respectively.Imrul Kayes was as usual as opening batsman scoring 36 runs in an aggressive manner from 29 balls featuring sever boundaries.Shakib Al Hasan showed all-round performances in the game scoring 23-run with bat and captured three-wickets for 41 runs in seven overs.Tigers skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza was unbeaten with 21 while Sabbir Rahman (11) and Tanbir Hayder (10) were the other double figure scorers for the side. Mahmudullah took one wicket for 14 runs in two-over to show his all-round form after scoring the 2nd highest figure for Bangladesh with bat.Bangladesh will travel to Christchurch on Friday for their first ODI against New Zealand on December 26.The 2nd and 3rd ODI of the series will be played at Saxton Oval in Nelson on December 29 and 31 respectively.
