Twitter Reactions: Mashrafe Mortaza and Mushfiqur Rahim deliver in the series opener

Bangladesh continued to keep Windies winless in the first of the three ODIs. It was yet another brilliant performance from the home side as the captain Mashrafe Mortaza led from the front with the ball in his 200th ODI game and then the experience of Mushfiqur Rahim helped Bangladesh ace the chase on a tough pitch.

After opting to bat first, Windies were bombarded with the spin from both the ends for the first few overs. Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Shakib Al Hasan tied the batsmen up straight away with the latter picking up an early wicket of Kieran Powell. However, surprisingly, Windies soon went into a shell with Darren Bravo taking 51 deliveries to score 19 runs.

His knock put pressure on Shai Hope who was looking fluent. But even he was dismissed on 43 and then the Caribbean innings never got going. It was only due to Roston Chase and Keemo Paul that they played the full quota of 50 overs. The duo added 51 runs for the seventh wicket to take the team’s total close to 200 as the visitors ended their innings on 195/9 after 50 overs.

Not so easy chase

One would’ve felt that Bangladesh will easily gun down the total. But the pitch was extremely tough to bat on and Windies pacers exploited the conditions really well. They kept on taking the wickets of the hosts’ batters and didn’t give up at any stage. Oshane Thomas, once again, was superior with his pace and castled Imrul Kayes with a brilliant delivery. Tamim Iqbal couldn’t enjoy his comeback game and was sent back by Roston Chase.

Amidst the fall of wickets at the other end, Rahim batted bravely and notched up an unbeaten half-century to take his team over the line. Liton Das and Shakib Al Hasan played a little cameos in the process and the middle-order partnerships made sure that Bangladesh never got away with the game. They chased down the total with 89 balls to spare but the road wasn’t so easy for them.

Here’s how Twitter reacted during the match: