Twitter Reactions: Junaid Khan's 4/19 helps Pakistan restrict Bangladesh to 239
Rahim's 99-run knock was one of the best he's played in the recent times.
Bangladesh and Pakistan locked horns today in Abu Dhabi which is a shootout between the two teams. The winner of the game will qualify for the final and play against India on Friday in Dubai. While the Asia Cup witnessed one of its most exhilarating contest on Tuesday, even this game seems to be going close after Bangladesh fought back from an extremely poor situation to post a somewhat competitive total of 239 runs.
They opted to bat first after winning the toss and were soon reduced to 12/3. The comeback man Junaid Khan was incisive in his opening spell as he sent back their openers Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar after which Shaheen Afridi rocked the stumps of Mominul Haque. Then the duo of Mushfiqur Rahim and Mohammad Mithun joined hand and like they did against Sri Lanka in the tournament opener, turned the game around with a scintillating partnership.
Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmed was also responsible for it as he let the opposition off the hook with some defensive field settings and didn’t give his bowlers any chance to pick wickets. However, it was Hasan Ali who struck to break the 144-run stand by taking Mithun’s wicket. Rahim looked set to notch up his seventh ODI ton but was scalped by the youngster Afridi.
Pakistan comes back in death overs
Fall of wickets at the wrong time hurt Bangladesh as they didn’t have a set batsman in the death overs to attack the bowlers. Junaid Khan bowled extremely well and he also castled their last hope Mahmudullah in the 48th over to leave Bangladesh reeling at 230/8. Their hopes of crossing the 250-run mark were somewhat shattered after being well placed at 156/3 in the 34th over.
Eventually, they posted only 245 runs and failed to play the full quota of their overs. Junaid was the pick of the bowlers as he ended up with the magical figures of 5/24 in his ten overs and was literally the saviour for Pakistan. He was well supported by Afridi and Hasan Ali to some extent.
It will be interesting to see the way Pakistan approach this chase as the pitch will get slower and the spinners are likely to come into the game.
Here’s how Twitter reacted during the innings:
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