Bangladesh beat Afghanistan by four wickets in the second T20I and took the series 2-0. It is their first-ever series victory in this format over Afghanistan.
Chasing 119 in DLS method, Litton Das (35 off 36) and Afif Hossain (24 off 20) went berserk in the powerplay, going at 10 runs per over. But after that phase, the visitors pulled it back big time, picking up two wickets, giving away 26 runs in the next six overs.
Bangladesh required 40 off the last five overs. Shakib Al Hasan and Towhid Hridoy did well to bring the equation down to 28 off four overs.
Hridoy (19 off 17) then hit a six off Azmatullah Omarzai to make things easier for the Tigers.
Bangladesh needed four off the final over to win. Shamim Hossain hit the winning runs.
Taskin Ahmed’s three-for and fine slog-over bowling performance helped Bangladesh keep Afghanistan to 116 for seven in 17 overs in the rain-affected second T20I.
Taskin Ahmed found great success after they had decided to hit the deck hard with the new ball. Rahmanullah Gurbaz hit a streaky six off Taskin in the first over but the pacer had his man in the next ball. This was Taskin’s 50th T20I wicket.
Taskin got rid of Hazratullah Zazai in his next over as a length ball bounced off the surface and landed in Litton Das’ gloves after kissing the bat. Afghanistan were 16 for two then.
Ibrahim Zadran and Mohammad Nabi, promoted at four after a fine 54* in the previous match, tried to consolidate after early stutters. Rain and wet outfield took a lot of time out of the match and finally it resumed at 8.15 pm local time after a long gap.
Ibrahim (22 off 27) and Nabi (16 off 22) didn’t last too long after the resumption as Shakib and Mustafizur Rahman accounted for their wickets.
Najibullah Zadran started off well with a boundary but was soon cleaned up by Shakib.
Mustafizur overcame a difficult start to bowl an excellent penultimate over where he gave away just three runs and got rid of Azmatullah Omarzai (25 off 21).
Taskin backed up the good work put in by Shakib and Mustafizur in the last over as he gave away just seven runs and picked up the wicket of Karim Janat (20 off 15).
