Mushfiqur Rahim looked in the zone from the get-go and his 96-run stand with skipper Shakib Al Hasan gave stability to the innings. The latter was scratchy for most parts but hung on and it helped that Mushfiqur was striking them crisply at the other end. The wicket-keeper bat was sublime in his strokeplay and used the conditions to good effect, relying more on using the pace than power to get his runs. When the veteran pair were out there, Bangladesh were eyeing a total in excess of 275. And then, another implosion hit. After finally getting some rhythm to his innings, Shakib became the latest casualty of Ferguson’s short ball ploy, a delivery after top-edging one for six.

The doors had opened once again for the Black Caps and they triggered another collapse out of nowhere. After batting very fluently, Mushfiqur was arguably the only batter to get out in unfortunate fashion as he got a delivery that barely rolled through from a hard length. Despite a man of short stature, he was beaten by the low bounce on a track that otherwise played very well in that aspect. With the only fluent batter out of the way, New Zealand squeezed and kept chipping away at the wickets.

The experienced Mahmudullah held one end up and hit a few big shots towards the end to lend some respectability to the total but Bangladesh are well short in terms of a par score here, especially with one shorter boundary on offer. New Zealand’s seamers were relentless and their outstanding fielding/catching put immense pressure on Bangladesh’s batters who didn’t help their cause with some irresponsible batting.

Brief scores:
Bangladesh 245/9 in 50 overs (Mushfiqur Rahim 66, Mahmudullah 41*; Lockie Ferguson 3-49, Trent Boult 2-45) vs New Zealand