Bangladesh proves to be a tough test for New Zealand - The 37th match of the cricket world cup was played between New Zealand and Bangladesh. It was a Pool A match and Bangladesh recently came winning against England and were looking strong and a spirited side while New Zealand on the other hand were proving to be a side to beat. They were unbeaten in all the matches and were looking strong in their home conditions. New Zealand in this match won the toss and chose to field first.
Bangladesh had a bad start to their innings as Imrul Kayes and Tamim Iqbal lost their wicket after scoring 13 and 2 runs respectively. The Bangladesh team was at 27/2 in 10th when Iqbal lost his wicket. Soumya Sarkar Mahmudullah had a great partnership between them. They took the score to 117 runs in 28th over. Soumya Sarkar scored 51 runs before losing his wicket. Mahmudullah kept his feet strong as he continued batting while other players came and went. Sabbir Rahman the lower down batsman scored 40 runs in 23 balls. Mahmudullah scored 128 unbeaten runs to take his team to a score of 288 runs. It was a fairly competitive score. Tim Boult took 2 wickets in his 10 overs.
New Zealand while chasing the score had a bad start to the innings. They lost Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson; both the batsmen scored 8 and 1 run respectively before losing their wicket to Shakib Al Hasan. Ross Taylor and Martin Guptill had a good partnership between them. They together took their team to 164 runs in 31 overs. Guptill scored 105 runs in 100 balls before losing his wicket to the bowl of Shakib-Al-Hassan. Grant Elliott joined hands with Taylor and took the team total cross 200 run mark and lost his wicket in 39th over after scoring 39 runs. Taylor too lost his wicket in the 42nd over after scoring 56 runs. The Kiwi’s were under pressure for the first time in the tournament. Corey Anderson and Luke Ronchi were together. Corey scored 39 runs in 26 balls in this chase but lost his wicket in the 48th over of the game. His wickets brought some hope to the Bangladesh side but it didn’t last long as Daniel Vettori and Tim Southee finished off the match with 7 balls in hand.