Pakistan v Bangladesh: Pakistan's confident but slow batting in pursuit of 125 runs, captain Babar Azam failed for the third time

 BBC News

Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat first in the last match of the three-match T20I series against Pakistan, but for the third time in a row, their decision proved futile and they lost only 124 runs at the end of 20 overs. Could score

In response, Pakistan has started confidently but slowly and after ten overs their score is 46 runs and one wicket has fallen.

It has become clear so far that Bangladesh's wickets are not at all suitable for batting and stroke play and an example of this has been seen in Pakistan's batting so far.

Captain Babar Azam, who had difficulty in timing both the Pakistani openers who were playing fluently in general, failed for the third time in the series and was dismissed for 19 off 25 balls.

However, on the other hand, Mohammad Rizwan and Haider Ali continue to bat and Pakistan now need 59 runs to win after 13 overs.

What happened in Bangladesh's innings?

After winning the toss, Bangladesh started the innings slowly. Shahnawaz Dhani took a wicket in the first over of his first match to hurt Bangladesh and at the end of four overs Bangladesh scored 23 runs for the loss of one wicket.

After that in the next six overs also the performance of Pakistani bowlers was very good and after ten overs the score reached 52 and two players were out.

By the 15th over of the innings, Bangladesh's score had reached 89 but in the same over Usman Qadir also got his second wicket when Afif Hussain was dismissed for 20 runs.

In the last four overs of the innings, Pakistani bowlers gave only 35 runs while opener Muhammad Naeem scored 47 runs for Bangladesh. No Bangladeshi batsman has scored a half-century in the entire series.

Pakistani bowlers consistently showed excellent performance and completely controlled the Bangladesh batsmen. For Pakistan, Muhammad Wasim Jr. bowled brilliantly and took two wickets for just 15 runs in four overs.

This is the first series of his career and so far Muhammad Wasim has bowled well in all the three matches and has taken five wickets in the series.

In this series, Pakistan has an unbeaten lead of two zeros. In the third match, Pakistan has given a chance to many players who were part of the squad for the World Cup and then for this series but could not play a single match.

Shoaib Malik is not playing this match due to his son's illness and former captain Sarfraz Ahmed has been included in the team in his place. Apart from them, Usman Qadir, Iftikhar Ahmed and Shahnawaz Dhani are also playing this match.

This is the first T20 match of Shahnawaz Dhani's international career and he is the 95th player to represent Pakistan in T20 matches.

Bangladesh have also made three changes to their squad and Shahidul Islam, Shamim Hussain and Nasoom Ahmed have been given a chance. Shahidul Islam is starting his T20 career with this match.

So far in this series, Pakistan has won both the matches by chasing the target. In the first match, the visiting team defeated the host team after a one-for-one contest, but the second match was relatively one-sided and Pakistan easily won the match by eight wickets to take an unbeaten lead in the series.

Pakistan captain Babar Azam, who had a stellar performance in the recently concluded World Cup, has so far failed to score a big score in the series, but the performances of Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhr Zaman have been remarkable.

Pakistan team: Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Haider Ali, Sarfraz Ahmed, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdal Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Usman Qadir, Shahnawaz Dhani, Haris Rauf and Mohammad Wasim Jr.

Bangladesh team: Muhammad Naeem, Najam Hussain Shanto, Afif Hussain, Shamim Hussain, Nasum Ahmed, Mahmudullah, Shahidul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Aminul Islam, Mehdi Hassan and Noorul Hassan.