Cricket Highlights, 22 Jul: ZIM vs BAN (1st T20I), IRE vs SA (2nd T20I)

The 1st T20I of the 3-match series between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe & the 2nd T20I of the 3-match series between South Africa and Ireland rolled on the field yesterday. Let’s have a glimpse at the article to know about the interesting happenings of the game.

ZIM vs BAN (1st T20I)

Bangladesh won the first T20 of the three-match series against Zimbabwe by 8 wickets. They easily chased down Zimbabwe’s target of 153 runs losing 2 wickets with 7 balls left.

Zimbabwe won the toss and elected to bat first, they were all out for 152 in 19 overs at the Sports Club Ground in Harare. In the second over of the innings, Mustafizur Rahman struck for the first time when Zimbabwe’s total was 10 runs. Tadiwanashe Marumani (7) hit a six off the second ball of the over and got caught in the fifth ball. Shakib sent off another opener, Wesley Madhevere (23). Destructive batsman Regis Chakabva returned to the dressing room after being run-out for 43 off 22 balls with 5 fours and 2 sixes. Shoriful picked up the wicket of dangerous all-rounder Sikandar Raja (0) with a 1 run interval.

Musakanda (6) then fell into the leg-before wicket in the second ball of the 14th over by Soumya Sarkar. In the end, Zimbabwe was bowled out with 1 over left in the Tigers’ aggressive bowling. Mustafizur Rahman took the highest number of wickets for Bangladesh (3-31, 4 overs). Besides, Saifuddin and Shoriful took 2 wickets, and Shakib and Soumya took 1 wicket each.

Mohammad Naim and Soumya gave a good start to Bangladesh coming down to chase runs in their 100th T20I match. In 7.1 overs, their pair went beyond fifty. Soumya picked up the 4th fifty of his career with 45 balls hitting 4 boundaries and 2 sixes. After the departure of Soumya, captain Mahmudullah (15) came to bat at No.3 position. After his departure, Nurul Hasan (16) came to the wicket. In the end, Naim played an unbeaten 66-run innings off 7 fours and 51 balls to lead the team to victory.

After winning this match, Bangladesh took a 1-0 lead in the three-match T20I series. The two teams will face each other at the same venue in the second match of the series today.

Scoreboard:
Zimbabwe – 152/10 (19.0)
Bangladesh – 153/2 (18.5)
Result – Bangladesh won by 8 wickets
Player of the Match – Soumya Sarkar

IRE vs SA (2nd T20I)

South Africa secured the series 2-0 by winning the second match of the three-match T20I series against Ireland. In the second match, the visitors won by a big margin of 42 runs. The Proteas got 159 runs on the scoreboard after batting first. In reply, Ireland was bowled out for 117 in 19.3 overs.

South Africa lost 2 wickets in the first over before scoring any run after winning the toss and opting to bat, they lost 5 wickets to score only 58 runs in 10 overs. From there, David Miller led the team to get a fighting total.

Miller, known as Killer Miller, played an innings of 75 runs off just 44 balls with 4 fours and 5 sixes. He smashed 4 sixes in the last over of the innings that was bowled by Joshua Little. Thanks to which South Africa could collect 159 runs.

After that, the rest of the work was done by Bjorn Fortuin and Tabraiz Shamsi. Ireland could not play the entire 20 overs with the bowling fierce of these two. Fortuin conceded only 16 runs in 4 overs while Shamsi gave only 14 runs. Both took 3 wickets each. Shane Getkate top-scored for Ireland with 24 runs, while George Dockrell scored 20 runs.

Scoreboard:
South Africa – 159/7 (20.0)
Ireland – 117/10 (19.3)
Result – South Africa won by 42 runs
Player of the Match – David Miller

International cricket is ongoing with some alluring battle of bat and ball. Stay with Baji for more latest updates on cricket!