‘Bowling in right areas’ guides Rana’s fiery comeback

“I made sure not to repeat the mistakes and tried to bowl in the right areas,” said Nahid Rana after a stirring comeback performance powered Bangladesh to a six-wicket win over New Zealand in the second ODI at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Monday.

The young pacer, who endured a costly outing in the series opener, responded in style with figures of 5-32 from his full quota of 10 overs, including a maiden.

It was his second five-wicket haul in ODIs as Bangladesh bowled out New Zealand for 198 in 48.4 overs. Bangladesh then rode on Tanzid Hasan’s fiery half-century to chase down the target in 35.3 overs and level the three-match series 1-1.

Rana struck with the very first ball of his spell, removing Henry Nicholls to give Bangladesh an early breakthrough. He followed it up by dismissing Will Young in his next over, immediately putting the visitors under pressure.

“In the previous match, I conceded quite a few runs, but today I focused on better line and length and gave away fewer runs. The previous match is gone, so I focused on learning from it,” Rana said during the post-match presentation.

New Zealand captain Tom Latham failed to make an impact as Soumya Sarkar struck early to keep the tourists under pressure.

Nick Kelly attempted to rebuild the innings with a fluent 83, adding crucial runs with Muhammad Abbas and Dean Foxcroft. However, Rana returned to break the backbone of the innings, removing both set batters before completing his five-for by rattling the stumps of Jayden Lennox in his final over.

With the effort, Rana joined Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed as the only Bangladeshi pacers to claim multiple five-wicket hauls in ODIs.

“There were some changes in the plan and we executed them well. We played better and secured a good win,” Rana added.

Shoriful Islam provided strong support with two for 32, while Taskin Ahmed, Soumya Sarkar and Rishad Hossain chipped in with one wicket each as Bangladesh kept the visitors in check throughout.

Having bounced back strongly from a 26-run defeat in the first match — where Rana conceded 65 runs for just one wicket — Bangladesh head into the series decider with renewed confidence.