Tom Blundell’s gritty fifty followed by a magnificent bowling spell of 6/39 from Ish Sodhi saw New Zealand beat Bangladesh by a margin of 86 runs to lead the three-match ODI series by 1-0.
Speaking about the second game, the visitors won the toss and opted to bat first. Will Young nicked one to the wicket-keeper for a duck as Mustafizur drew the first blood for Bangladesh while Finn Allen departed for 12 becoming the second victim of Mustafizur. Khaled Ahmed soon ended the short stay of Chad Bowes for 19-ball 14.
Henry Nicholls and Tom Blundell led the rescue with a 95-run stand for the fourth wicket before Ahmed struck his second wicket by picking up Nichols for 49. Blundell rose to his fifty before getting dismissed for 68. Handy cameos from Ish Sodhi (35) and Kyle Jamieson (20) helped New Zealand post a competitive total of 254.
Chasing 255, Bangladesh lost their skipper Litton Das first up for 6 runs as Kyle Jamieson provided the breakthrough. Tanzid Hasan and Tamim Iqbal added 41 runs for the second wicket before Ish Sodhi struck twice in the 11th over removing Tanzid Hasan for 16 while Soumya Sarkar got dismissed without scoring.
From there on Sodhi went over the moon against the Bangla batters picking his best figures of 6/39. Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah played a good hand in their comeback game, scoring 44 and 49, respectively, while other batters kept falling at regular intervals. Bangladesh got bowled out for 168, eventually losing by a margin of 86 runs. Sodhi picked up six wickets while Jamieson picked up two wickets.
Let us look at the numbers and stats from the second ODI between Bangladesh and New Zealand:
68 – Tom Blundell scored 68 runs, the highest score by a New Zealand wicket-keeper in Bangladesh, Surpassing Brendon McCullum’s score of 61.
6/39 -Ish Sodhi registered his best bowling figures of 6/39, bettering his previous best of 4/58 which came against England in Dunedin.
3 -This is the third time New Zealand have defeated Bangladesh in Bangladesh since 2008.
6/39 -Ish Sodhi’s figure of 6/39 is the best bowling by a New Zealand spinner in ODIs. Previously Daniel Vettori registered 5/7 against Bangladesh in 2007.
1 -Ish Sodhi became the first spinner to take five wickets against Bangladesh in ODIs.
1 – Sodhi became the first New Zealand spinner to take 6 wickets in ODIs.
2 -New Zealand won the game by 86 runs, the second biggest margin of victory for them against Bangladesh in Bangladesh. Their previous best of 138 runs victory came way back in 2004 in Chattogram.
3 -Tom Blundell and Henry Nicholls registered 95 runs for the fifth wicket, third highest for New Zealand against Bangladesh. 130 between Colin Munro and Ross Taylor tops the list followed by 113 between Devon Conway and Tom Latham.
