Despite losing a world champion tag and going through declining stage, Australia is still very strong opponent for Bangladesh. Today's match at Shere Bangla Stadium in Mirpur was pretty one-sided. Bangladesh were no where near to 270 runs scored by Australia. Aussies won the match by 60 runs and led the series by 1-0.
Australia is definitely not taking this series lightly. They are playing in Tiger's den, so they opt to select their full strength team. Michael Clarke celebrated his first win as a full-time skipper by scoring a century, which was a captain knock in every aspect. He played a patient inning, didn't throw his wicket and build up major partnerships in more than one occasion. Shane Watson (37 off 32 balls), Ricky Ponting (34 off 31 balls) and Michael Hussey (33 off 51 balls) were other major contributors, while the late fireworks from Mitchell Johnson (26 off 13 balls) ensured that Bangladesh would chase very difficult target in slow pitch. Suhrawadi Shuvo (44/3) impressed a lot with his slow bowling and skipper Shakib Al Hasan (34/0) remained economical as usual in his allocated 10 overs. It was a comback match for fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza, who took 2 wickets but remained quite expensive as he spent 65 runs at an economy rate of 7.22.
Bangladesh could not have imagined a worse start than this one, as their key batsmen Imrul Kayes (0) and Shahriar Nafees (4) departed early after some great bowling from Australian seamers. Once again, it was the responsibility of star batsman Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan to carry the handicapped batting efforts. Tamim (62 off 89 balls) and Hasan (51 off 90 balls) played some good strokes, but they failed to maintain the run rate. The pressure to catch up the run rate of 8 per over forced them to play harsh strokes that cost them their wickets. Bangladeshi batsmen could not capitalize their run rate and surrendered to the Australian bowlers before the match could end. Mushfiqur Rahim (44 off 58 balls) and Mahmudullah (28 off 31 balls) played carefully after all and ensured not to give any more wicket. Overall, a pretty below average batting performance from Bangladesh and there was no attempt to win the match. A kinda boring match.
The 2nd ODI will be played on 11 April, 2011 in Dhaka.
