It was rude awakening for Tigers as Ireland who suffered a trashing at the hand of Scotland only two days back, regrouped themselves to hand Bangladesh a shocking four-wicket defeat at Blacktown Olympic Park Oval on Thursday in Sydney.
A day before the biggest cricket carnival kicks- off, Bangladesh preparation for the World Cup suffered a jolt as it was the worst batting performance by Tigers so far in the tour. Bangladesh loss to Ireland was their fourth defeat in as many practice games in Australia.
They lost both matches against a Cricket Australia XI side in Brisbane before the defeats in the World Cup warm-ups (Pakistan and Ireland).
Skipper Mashrsafe Bin Mortaza began the day wrongly as he lost the important toss and his rival skipper WTS Porterfield did not hesitate to ask Bangladesh to bat first. His bowlers made sure that his caption’s decision was correct as soon Tigers found themselves in troubled water in the very first ten overs scoring 30 runs for 2 wickets in 10 overs.
Both prolific southpaw batsmen – Tamim Iqbal and Mominul Haque were back in pavilion. Tamim playing his first match was out for after scoring 4 off 11 deliveries while Mominul also struggled to score 8 run off 19 deliveries.
However it was the other opener Anamul Haque and number four batsman Soumya Sarkar stopped the rot as they put of valuable 58 runs for the third wicket stand but as it started to look that Bangladesh has recovered from early storm (88 for 2), Andy McBrine struck again for Ireland as he captured Anamul’s scalp in the 24th over. Anamul scored a painstaking 25 runs off 72 balls without a hit to the fence.
Soumya who was the best Bangladesh batters tried his level best to take his team to set a healthy target but his lady luck failed to smile as he was run-out in the 29th over after making 45 with two boundaries off 51 deliveries.
Mushfiqur Rahim 26 off 34 balls, Sabbir Rahman 20 off 33balls and Mashrafe Mortaza 22off 35 balls, all got off to their start but failed to prolonged their innings as John Moooney and Max Sorensen bowled a tight line by picking regular wickets as Bangladesh crawled to 189 all out in 48.2 overs.
Most embarrassing part of the Bangladesh innings was that Tigers struck only six boundaries in almost 49 overs of batting. If Ireland bowlers had not conceded 25 extras including 21wides then the Tigers total would have just crossed beyond 150 marks. Mooney and Sorensen took three wickets each while Kevin O’Brien, George Dockrell and McBrine took one each.
Facing an easy target Ireland too began their innings in a similar manner losing opener Paul Stirling (5) in the sixth over and captain William Porterfield (24) in the 12th. One down batsman Ed Joyce remained firm as he scored a defiant 47 (83balls) despite losing Niall O’Brien and Gary Wilson to leave Ireland in spot of a bother at 78 for 4 in the 25th over.
Joyce and Balbirnie scored priceless 59 for the fifth wicket to take their out of troubled water.
Joyce made 47 off 87 balls while Balbirnie was not out on 63 off 79 balls with the help of six hits to the fence. Balbirnie added another 41 runs for the sixth wicket with Kevin O’Brien, who made 23, before helping his side cruise to victory with 19 balls to spare.
Taijul Islam took two wickets while Al-Amin Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Shakib Al Hasan and Nasir Hossain took one each.
Bangladesh will travel to Canberra on Friday to prepare for their World Cup opener against Afghanistan on February 18 while Ireland plays their first match against former world champions West Indies in Nelson on February 16.
