A low-scoring game was witnessed during the 34th match of the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup between Australia and Bangladesh, where Bangladesh ended their campaign by losing all of the matches in Super 12.
It was an emphatic win and a dominating show by the Aussies, which also took their NRR past South Africa in the points table, as they keep their semi-final hopes alive.
Seven of the eight games in this tournament have been won by teams chasing the total at the Dubai Internation Stadium and Aaron Finch won the toss and elected to bowl first.
The Bangladeshi batters’ failure
Mohammad Naim and Liton Das opened the innings for Bangladesh, but Das was bowled by Mitchel Starc off the third ball of the innings to send him back for a golden duck.
Starc was keen on attacking the stumps a lot, especially at the start of the innings. He took two important wickets at an economy of 5.25. After the dismissal of Das, wickets kept falling at regular intervals, and by the end of the 15th over, Bangladesh were all out for just 73 runs.
Shamim Hossain scored 19 runs off 18 balls and also hit the lone six of Bangladesh’s innings. It was Bangladesh’s second-lowest total in T20Is, behind the 70 they scored against the Black Caps in the tournament’s 2016 edition. Only three batters from Bangladesh managed to reach double-digit scores, with none going past 19.
Five Bangladeshi lower-middle order batters fell prey to the dangerous leggie Adam Zampa, who returned the best bowling figures for an Australian in the tournament’s history. He became the second Australian to pick a five-wicket haul in ICC Men’s T20 World Cup after James Faulkner’s 5-27 against Pakistan in 2016.
The Australian bowlers bowled tight lines, not conceding easy runs. While each of the five bowlers brought into the display were economical, only Pat Cummins didn’t get a wicket from his three overs.
Explosive batting by the Aussies
David Warner and Aaron Finch started the run chase with just four runs from the opening over, but post that, the runs started to flow. By the end of the Powerplay, Australia had already scored 67 runs for the loss of two wickets.
Finch was unstoppable with the attack he was putting on with the bat. He scored a quick 40 off just 20 balls, setting up the chase perfectly for Australia by striking at 200.
The Aussie openers put on an imposing partnership of 58 runs during the Powerplay, and post that, Mitchel March came to the middle and scored a quick 16 off just five balls. The Aussies scored 78 in just 6.2 overs, losing just two wickets.
Taskin Ahmed and Shoriful Islam from Bangladesh took one wicket each but were expensive. Australia would have wanted a big win to boost their NRR, and this game proved to be the ideal one for them.