Australia’s bowling attack ruthlessly exposed Bangladesh’s batting when the world champions cruised to a 180-run win on Saturday in the first of three one-day internationals.
After Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful won the toss and asked Australia to bat, the visitors bowled well to restrict Australia to 254-8 from their 50 overs.
However, any hopes the Bangladeshis may have had of causing an upset were quickly dashed when the Australian bowlers broke through to crush the visitors.
Only opener Tamim Iqbal with 21 showed any resistance as the rest of the Bangladeshis surrendered meekly to an Australian bowling line-up missing Brett Lee, Shane Watson and Andrew Symonds.
Tasmania’s Brett Geeves took two wickets on his debut, while leg-spinner Cameron White grabbed three in two overs, with the visitors losing their last five wickets for only 15 runs.
Australia were without Symonds, who was sent home Saturday morning after going fishing and missing a team meeting the previous day.
The incident evoked memories of Australia’s tour of England in 2005, when Symonds was stood down from an ODI — also against Bangladesh — after he arrived at the ground drunk.
While Bangladesh capitalised on Symonds’ absence that day and notched up a rare win, they were unable to match their opponents in any department this time around.
Australia got away to a solid start with openers Shaun Marsh (76) and James Hopes (22) taking the score to 56 before Hopes skied a pull shot off the bowling of Nazmul Hossain.
Regular partnerships followed as the Australian top order all got starts, but the scoring was kept in check until Mike Hussey (85) was joined at the crease by brother David (24).
Man of the match Hussey played a well-weighted innings, beginning cautiously in the hot and humid conditions before unleashing an array of boundaries in the closing overs.
Although he went wicketless, fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza (0-31) was the pick of the Bangladeshi bowlers and fellow paceman Shahadat Hossain took three late wickets to finish with 3-42.
Despite Tamin’s bright start, the deficiencies of the visiting batsmen meant a win never looked likely.
”Our bowlers bowled well and we fielded well also, but we didn’t bat well,” Ashraful said.
”Once we lost five wickets quickly it was very difficult to come back.” – Reuters