Tamim keeps Tigers alive

Bangladesh launched their ICC World T20 campaign on the right track but not before a few goose-bumps against the spirited Netherlands, who almost ran down the Tigers' competitive 153 before falling eight runs short in their opening ICC World T20 qualifier at Dharamsala yesterday.

It was a cracker of a game where fortunes fluctuated from one end to the other until that 17th over with the Dutch on the ascendency, needing 42 runs in 24 balls with six wickets in hand.

Tigers captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, after giving a second thought to reintroducing Al-Amin Hossain, took the ball in his own hand. And the next six deliveries he bowled were something extraordinary from an extraordinary man. He conceded just three runs. But that will tell little of the whole package that included a full-length delivery that took the inside edge of Peter Borren's bat before hitting the stump without dislodging the bails, two beautiful out-swingers and the wicket of Roelof van der Merwe.

This particular over irrevocably turned the game on its head. Mashrafe's serious understudy, Taskin Ahmed, then bowled six sublime yorkers to take the game beyond the reach of the Netherlands, who were then left with the daunting task of scoring 33 runs off 12 balls. Holland's captain Borren, who after the game admitted that Mashrafe's over was a crucial blow for them, also termed Taskin's 18th over as one that 'hardly missed any yorker'.

The Dutch clobbered 16 runs from the penultimate over bowled by Al-Amin but failed to repeat the same act when Taskin returned to bowl the last over that yielded only eight runs.

Bangladesh won the match by eight runs and there were two bowling heroes and one batting hero in dashing opener Tamim Iqbal, whose unbeaten 83 was not just the cornerstone of a competitive total on a two-paced wicket but the projection of a supremely cool man out in the middle.

With wickets falling around him at regular intervals, the left-hander played with determination and authority to make sure Bangladesh, after being sent in to bat, crossed that 150 mark. His deft touch off the back foot that pierced the point and  cover fielders, his shimmy down the wicket for three effortless sixes, a savage pull over the midwicket boundary and hunger for turning one-and-a-half runs into twos was something special from a batsman known for power hitting.    

The only blemish of his 58-ball knock was a missed stumping chance when he was on 46. He reached his third successive T20 fifty against the Netherlands off 36 balls with three fours and two sixes. It was unfortunate that Tamim missed the opportunity to become Bangladesh's first batsman to score a T20I century.

But it was mainly because of the fall of two wickets in the 15th over of the Bangladesh innings that forced Tamim from going all guns blazing. Mahmudullah Riyad, promoted up the batting order after the departure of Shakib, unnecessarily tried to force the ball and was clean bowled by Timm van der Gugten. Mushfiqur Rahim also followed Mahmudullah in the same over, leaving Tamim with the tough task of batting with the tail.

Tamim's unbeaten 83 was the third-best individual score for Bangladesh after his own unbeaten 88 against West Indies in 2012 and Shakib's 84 against Pakistan the same year. The nervy win once again exposed Bangladesh's stop-start batting with Shakib and Mushfiqur struggling to get back to any sort of form. Besides, Bangladesh's spin department, once regarded their biggest strength, was hopelessly out of sorts. The Tigers, desperately missing their ace pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman due to injury, need to solve this riddle before their next game against Ireland at the same venue tomorrow.