Harare 7 August : Sikandar Raza’s three wicket haul (3/56) and a dazzling century (117 not out of 127) contributed to Zimbabwe defeat Bangladesh by five wickets in the second T20I and win an unbeatable two-match series in the three-match series on Sunday. The victory was Zimbabwe’s first win in a series against Bangladesh in the last three years.
In the nine years in between they hadn’t won any ODI in their series against Bangladesh and had lost 19 games on the bounce.
The win was also Zimbabwe’s first win in a bilateral ODI series since the year 2019 (when they defeated UAE) and their first victory against an all-member team since their famous victory in 2017 against Sri Lanka.
Bangladesh had only lost two wickets in a 300 or more in the last game however, here despite attempting to take a little more, they finished with the score below 300.Batting first and the half-century of Tamim Iqbal as well as an unbeaten 84 off 84 balls by Mahmudullah helped Bangladesh score an impressive 290/9 in 50 overs.
After just 40 overs, Bangladesh were 206/4 with Mahmudullah at 27 off just 50 balls.However, off the 34th ball, Mahmudullah smashed 53 runs to assist in helping Bangladesh make a formidable total of 206/4.
Raza struck three times in the final overs of Zimbabwe and then dismissed Afif Hossain who scored 41 runs, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, and Taskin Ahmed to give Mahmudullah steady support at the opposite.Then, what seemed to be a total over 300 was slowed with the falling of wickets in the final stages in the innings.
Raza was able to finish with the bowling statistics of 10-0-56-3.
However, his feat with the ball was overshadowed by his batting prowess again as Zimbabwe was a bit shaky in the chase for runs again.
The 36-year-old Raza became the first Zimbabwean player following Brendan Taylor to make back-to-back ODI centuries.The middle order batter had scored an unbeaten 135 in the previous game to lead Zimbabwe beyond the mark and this time, he stood unbeaten on 117 as Zimbabwe won the series by taking the score to 117 in 47.3 overs.
He was joined by Regis Chakabva for company on Sunday, with the batter compiling his first ODI ton (102) in the course of the pair put together a double century to save Zimbabwe from a 49/4.Raza is currently batting 472 runs in ODIs in 2022, with an average of 78.66 and a strike rate of over 90.Incredibly there is there is no other Zimbabwean batter has scored more than 250 runs in ODIs this year.
Brief Scores: Bangladesh 290/9 (Mahmudullah 80 not out, Tamim Iqbal 50; Sikandar Raza 3-56) lost to Zimbabwe 291/5 in 47.3 ov (Sikandar Raza 117 not out, Regis Chakabva 102) by five wickets
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