Forlorn batting give Bangladesh bowlers a challenging task

Despite the openers proving a solid start, Bangladesh allowed the Netherlands to gain the upper hand as the Tigers lost momentum in the middle overs in the two sides' first Super 12 encounter in the T20 World Cup at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart today.

Bangladesh would feel they were 15-20 runs short as the total read 144 for eight after 20 overs.

After being sent in to bat first, things looked good for the Tigers up until the end of the fifth over as the scoreboard read 43 for no loss, with Nazmul Hossain Shanto and Soumya Sarkar striking a boundary or two every over, six in total. From then onward, the two openers got out in the span of seven deliveries and initiated a great spell of proceedings for the Dutch side.

Against the run of play, Soumya (14) mistimed a pull shot off a van Meerken delivery to get caught in the in-field before Shanto's (25) slog sweep off a Tim Pringle delivery found the fielder at deep mid-wicket.  

The onus was then on Shakib Al Hasan and Liton Das to carry on the platform laid by the openers but wickets kept falling at regular intervals.

Liton (9) got out in similar fashion to Soumya and, four deliveries later, Shakib (7) too had departed despite striking a well-timed sweep shot that seemed to have headed for a maximum. However, Bas de Leede took a well-judged catch at the edge of the boundary.

Yasir Ali, too, (3) came and went as the right-hander could not deal Meerken's fast yorker as Bangladesh slumped to 77 for five after 11 overs.

Nurul Hasan Sohan then stitched the innings' highest stand, off 44, with Afif Hossain for the sixth-wicket stand. But the Tigers suffered another collapse, from 120 for five in 17 overs to becoming 134 for eight in 18.3, with both set batter back to dug out. Afif ended up to be Bangladesh's top-scorer with 38 while Nurul chipped in with 13.  

Bangladesh ended up scoring past 140, courtesy of Mosaddek Hossain's cameo of 20 off 12 balls.

All Dutch bowlers, except Colin Ackermann, took a wicket.