Brilliant batting from Litton Das and Shakib Al Hassan’s five wickets sealed the series victory for Bangladesh defeating Ireland by 77 runs in the second T20 international on Tuesday .
Held at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chattogram, the rain interrupted match was reduced to 17 overs for each and Tigers were sent to bat first, riding on a 124 runs in 9.2 overs in the opening stand of Litton and Rony, set a mammoth total of 202 runs.
Shakib Al Hassan became the highest wicket taker in the T20 international with 136 leaving past Tim Saudi of New Zealand.
Tigers restricted Ireland for just 125 runs for nine wickets when Shakib Al Hassan just demolished the the visitors taking five wickets in his four overs spells and Taskin Ahmed accompanied the captain taking three wickets.
Bangladesh threw a big challenge scoring runs at 11.88 per over, their best ever and a full 20 overs game could potentially help them go past their highest total of 215 in this format.
However, Irlenad captain Paul Stirling won the toss and sent Bangladesh to bat first, Liton Das and Rony Talukder looked strong in their aggressive batting. The aggressive batters came out from the third over in fierce mood when they scored the fasted 50 in just 3.3 overs and reached 100 in 43 deliveries in the opening pair for Bangladesh in any format of the game.
Liton Das and Rony Talukder, who were on high spirits right from the second over, were ruthless to smashing the Irish bowlers to score 73 runs in first power play (five overs), scored a record 124 runs in the opening stand by 9.2 overs before Rony Talukder got out.
Rony Talukder, who took a bit time to go for hit, smacked 44 off 23 balls with three fours and two sixes before being caught by Adair at long on just close to the rope when Ben White made the first breakthrough.
White, the leg-break bowler after the first break through, made the big blow in a span of 14 runs taking the wicket of Liton Das for 83, who was seemingly going to be the first batter of Bangladesh to score a century in T20 format.
Liton Das’s swashbuckling 83 runs off 41 balls featured 10 boundaries and three over boundaries. Liton brought up his fifty off just 18 deliveries, the fastest by a Bangladeshi batter, breaking Mohammad Ashraful's record of 20 ball-fifty against West Indies in 2007 T20 World Cup.
After the departure of opening pair in a quick successions, skipper Shakib and Hridoy took the charge, when the middle orders also looked a bit slow but gradually they appeared with real characters.
The skipper along with young Hridoy came down hard on the Irish bowlers to keep up the run rate adding 61 off just 30 balls before Hridoy was dismissed by Mark Adair. Hridoy scored a rapid 24 off 13 balls with three fours and a six.
In reply, chasing a massive target the visitors soon ran into trouble, just as they had in the previous two games. The spin of Shakib and pace attack by Taskin gave no chance to the Irsih batters to counter attacking as swing the momentum at their ways.
Taskin Ahmed initiated the disaster with the first ball of Ireland innings taking skipper Paul Stirling for a duck.
After the dismissal of Stirling by Taskin, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hassan took the responsibility on his shoulder and destroyed the Ireland innings sending five batters for 24 runs in his first three overs and template for Tigers to continue attacking, as he reduced Ireland to 43 for 6.
Though Curtis Campher’s 50 off 30 balls and Garaham Hume delayed the Tigers’ win.
But Taskin again hit Hume and Fionna Land when Hassan Mahmud picked up one wicket to restrict the opponents for 125 runs.
