Bangladesh visited New Zealand for the 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is in the month of March-April 2021. The bilateral series between the two nations started with the first ODI at University Oval, Dunedin on 20 March 2021. Daryl Mitchell, Will Young, and Devon Conway made their ODI debut for New Zealand in that match. Mahedi Hasan was playing his first ODI for Bangladesh. New Zealand won the toss and invited the opposition to bat first. Tamim Iqbal, the captain himself, and Liton Das came out to the middle to open and Trent Boult got the new ball in hand.
Bangladesh did not get a good start and lost two quick wickets in the 5th over at 19 runs only. Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar were sent in by Trent Boult in an over. Bangladesh came under pressure and could not recover the damage made by New Zealand bowlers. New Zealand bowlers were dominating the Bangladesh batsmen from the start and had put pressure on them. The top order and middle-order batsmen could not stay longer on the crease and the entire team was bowled out at the low score of 131 runs only in 41.5 overs. Mahmudullah was the top scorer for Bangladesh who added 27 runs to the scoreboard. Trent Boult was awesome with the ball and took 4 wickets of Bangladesh. James Neesham and Mitchell Santner also performed well and got 2 wickets each. New Zealand got the target of 132 runs to win the first ODI match of NZ vs Ban series 2021.
Martin Guptill and Henry Nicholls were on the crease to chase the target and Mustafizur Rahman got the new ball in hand to open the attack. Both the openers started well with some great shots and had added some quick runs on the scoreboard. New Zealand had scored the first 50 runs off just 4.6 overs at the run rate of 10 runs per over. The target was not too big for the hosting team and achieved it comfortably in 21.2 overs. Martin Guptill gave a fast start by making 38 runs from just 19 balls; Henry Nicholls contributed unbeaten 49 runs that helped New Zealand to achieve the target. Hasan Mahmud and Taskin Ahmed got one wicket each but could not stop New Zealand batsmen.
New Zealand won the first ODI of the series between New Zealand and Bangladesh by 8 wickets and led the series by 2-1. Trent Boult was named Man of the Match for his outstanding bowling performance.