Mashrafee bin Murtaza led Bangladesh from the front to 105-run victory over Afghanistan as Bangladesh got off to a winning start in the World Cup 2015 in Canberra on Wednesday.
Mashrafee finished with 3-20 helping Tigers dismiss the Afghans for 162 runs in 42.5 overs after half-centuries from Mushfiqur Rahim and Sakib al Hasan guided Bangladesh
to 267 all out.
Chasing the target, Afghans were off to a disastrous start when they lost three wickets for three runs, a position from where they could never recover.
Mashrafee was outstanding in his opening spell picking two wickets for five runs in four overs and Rubel Hossain complemented with another wicket.
Skipper Mohammad Nabi scored highest 44 runs for Afghanistan before he became the final victim of Mashrafee during the batting powerplay.
Sakib also played his part with the ball taking 2-43.
Earlier, Sakib and man-of-the-match Mushfiq shared 114-run partnership for the fifth wicket as Bangladesh recovered from 119-4 to get a decent score.
Mushfiq made 71 off 56 balls and Sakib added 63 off 51 balls to leave Afghanistan completely demoralised.
The pair batted extremely well to score at 7.35 during their scintillating partnership which also helped the side made up for their slow start at the Manuka Oval.
The lower-order batsmen, however, could not capitalise on their batting as Bangladesh lost their last six wickets for 34 runs to be all out in the final ball of their allotted 50 overs.
Left-arm pacer Shapoor Zardan earlier bowled extremely tight in his first two spells lo leave Bangladesh’s top-order struggling after Mashrafee bin Murtaza won the toss and opted to bat first.
Zardan conceded four runs his in three overs as two openers Anamul Haque and Tamim Iqbal struggled to keep the scoreboard rolling.
Just when it seemed they are changing the tempo Mirwais Ashraf made Tamim a catch of wicketkeeper Afzar Zazai for 19.
Anamul followed Tamim, who faced 42 balls, in Ashraf’s next over after scoring 29 off 55 balls.
Somuya Sarker provided a counter punch and seemed poised for a big innings before Zardan hit him plumb lbw for 28 off 25 balls.
Two overs later, he induced an edge from another set batsman Mahmudulla, who made 23 from 46 balls.
Bangladesh went into the match with eight batsmen as they left out Nasir Hossain, Taijul Islam, Arafat Sunny and Al-Amin Hossain.
-With New Age input
