Bangladesh have struggled against New Zealand in ODI series. They won the final ODI by dismissing New Zealand for a mere 98 runs. After such a sensational performance, they have come out with a great confidence in the first T20I. The bowlers again restricted big hitters of NZ by sending back Finn Allen(1), Tim Seifert(0) and Glenn Phillips(0) very early.
With such aggressive batters being removed in the early overs, NZ needed to play with circumspection. Mark Chapman(19) and Daryl Mitchell(14) took their time but failed to kick on. James Neesham rescued the innings from being absolute disaster like in third ODI with an aggressive innings. He scored 48 runs from 29 balls.
Captain Mitchell Santner(23) and Adam Milne(16) have also chipped in to take the score past 130 runs. New Zealand scored 134/9 in 20 overs. Shoriful Islam(3/26), Mustafizur Rahman(2/15), Mahedi Hasan(2/14), Rishad Hossain(1/24) and Tanzim Hasan Sakib(1/45) took wickets for Bangladesh and helped in restricting NZ.
In the chase, Litton Das stood at one end and other batters kept going aggresively against NZ bowlers. He scored 42 runs from 36 balls. Najmul Hossain Shanto(19), Soumya Sarkar(22), Towhid Hridoy(19) and Mahedi Hasan(19) have chipped in to take the score to 137/5. Hence, Bangladesh won the match by 5 wickets. Mehedi Hasan won the player of the match for his all-rounder effort.
As they have started the series on such a positive note, New Zealand might try to bring back some seniors into the squad. NZ are looking to give all their bench strength good match practice with CWC T20I in the sight. Bangladesh, on the other hand, is looking to win T20I series in New Zealand for the first time.