Tamim leads the way with the 2nd century of the series.
Dhaka, July 28 – Bangladesh have to defend the first 300-plus score of the series to seal a series win against hosts West Indies in the deciding 3rd ODI at Warner Park, Basseterre in St Kitts on Saturday. Opting to bat first on winning the toss today, Bangladesh played out 50 overs for their highest total on Windies soil for the cost of six wickets as opener Tamim Iqbal continued his dominance in the series firing a century of 103 runs — scored unbeaten 130 and 54 in the 1st and 2nd games — and sharing a partnership of 81 off 16 overs in the second wicket with Shakib Al Hasan to recover early loss.
Mahmudullah Riyad stayed for unbeaten innings of a 49-ball 67, including five boundaries and three sixes, for his 19th ODI half century along-with building up a 42-ball 53 partnership in the 5th wicket with skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, who came good after promoting himself ahead of regular batsmmen Shabbir Ahmed and Mosaddek to number 6.
Thanks to Mashrafe’s luck winning the toss in all three games of the series and the day’s innings of 25-ball 36 that included four boundaries — of them three successive in 42nd over off skipper Jason Holder — and one six.
Mahmudullah-Mashrafe’s 5th wicket pair carried the team collection to 253/5 in 45.5 overs, starting after the dismissal of Tamim on 200/4 in 38.5 overs, before before the Bangladesh captain was caught by Chris Gayle off Holder.
Tamim played an innings of 124 balls to fire seven boundaries and two sixes for his 11th ODI century before being caught by Keemo Paul off Devendra Bishoo.
Shakib [37 off 44b; 3×4] was removed from 2nd wicket stand by Ashley Nurse on 116/2 in 25.3 overs as was caught by Keemo Paul.
Mushfiqur Rahim and Sabbir Rahman added 12 runs each fothe side while Mosaddek Hossain’s unbeaten 11 off 5 balls with one boundary helped a quick 22* off 8-ball partnership with Mahmudullah in the 7th wicket.
Bangladesh suffered the first jolt on 35/1 in 9.3 overs as Anamul Haque [10 off 31b; 1×4] was caught by Keemo Paul off Bishoo, proving himself unfit in the opening pair with Tamim.
Ashley Nurse (2/53) and Jason Holder (2/55) equally shared four wickets for the host side while Devendra Bishoo (1/42) and Sheldon Cottrell (1/59) shared two wickets.
Bangladesh had taken the lead in the series with a comfortable 48-runs win in the first ODI while the Windies bounced back in the evenly-contested series, winning the second game by three runs in a last-over thriller at Providence Stadium in Guyana. – UNB
