An exciting Finish to the Asia Cup as Bangladesh loses the Finals
After defeating Sri Lanka and creating India's exit from the Asia Cup, Bangladesh were all set to take on Pakistan in the finals. The host team had loads of support from the home crowd & from others.
Pakistan openers walked out to bat, they were expected to give a good
start against Bangladesh too. After a shaky start with the bat the
Tigers (as Bangladesh is known as) got their 1st breakthrough. Jamshed
fell to a beauty from their strike bowler Mortaza and an over later
Younis Khan went too. Things were not looking good for Pakistan as they were looking wickets at regular intervals as captain Misbah fell and a couple of runs later Hafeez went for 40. It was 70-4 and Pakistan needed a built up. Umar and Azam settled things down after a good 59 runs partnership and soon after Afridi blitz of and feasted on the Bangladesh bowling attack Afridi whacked 32 of just 22 balls with 4 fours and a six. Sarfaz came up with his late attack after a slowish start and took his score to 46 of just 52 balls as Pakistan managed a total of 236 runs on the board.
After the Bangladesh bowlers did a splendid job to restrict Pakistan batsmen to 236, their openers started of pretty well with Tamim attacking from one end and Nazimuddin rotating strikes to give his partner more balls to face. Tamim looked to tacle good after sending him for few boundaries and then batted with ease against other bowlers too. After a solid 68 runs opening stand they lost Nazimuddin and Jahurul in quick succession as Nasir steadied it once again with Tamim. Tamim went on to make his 4th half century in a row of the series with help of 8 fours he got out making 68 important runs.
Sakib Al Hasan continued his brilliant form and made a quick fire 68 of just 72 balls and along with Nasir took Bangladesh score to 179-5 when he fell. Captain Rahim could not do much and went making 10. Mortaza ent after the Pakistan bowlers and made 18 runs in just 9 balls as the target got easy to chase. But, after the fall of Mortaza's wicket even the regular batsman Mahmudullah could not take Bangladesh to victory as Bangladesh lost the match by just 2 runs.
Bangladesh fought their way out and entered the finals with lots of hopes on winning it. They came so close on achieving the target but lost by 2 runs in the end. Even though they could not win the finals they won the heart of many fans. They have truly risen to everyone's expectations and they have a bright future ahead of them.
Shakib Al Hasan was awarded the Man of the Series for his brilliant all round performance throughout and Shahid Afridi was given the Man of the Match award.
(All images, property of espncricinfo.com, used for
reference only).
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