Bangladesh bowlers thoroughly dominated the New Zealand batting order to bundle them out for 60 runs in the first T20I of the five-match series in Dhaka.
This was the second instance when the Blackcaps were dismissed for a score of 60. They were once bowled out for the same score against Sri Lanka in Chattogram back in 2014.
The visitors had a terrible start to the proceedings on a track that looked slowish in nature as they lost debutant Rachin Ravindra for a golden duck on the third delivery of the match. The left-hander closed the face of the bat early while trying to work a length ball towards the on side and the bowler Mahedi Hasan caught him off his own bowling. The batsman
New Zealand then lost three more wickets in quick succession and were left tottering at 9/4 with experienced players such as Tom Blundell and Colin de Grandhomme back in the hut.
Captain Tom Latham and Henry Nichols tried to steady the ship for the side as the two batsmen played cautiously to put 34 runs for the fifth wicket. But their stay wasn’t a long one either as Latham departed for a 25-ball 18 after he miscued a pull shot and was caught by Nasum Ahmed off Saifuddin.
The skipper’s wicket broke the shackles and it took another 17 runs for the Bangladesh bowlers to wrap up the innings. Nicholls was the only second batsman to go past the double-figure mark as he scored 18 off 24 deliveries before getting out to Saifuddin.
For Bangladesh, it was Mustafizur Rahman who scalped a three-for while Ahmed, Shakib and Saifuddin picked up a couple of wickets each.