Warner century gives Aussies hard-fought win over Tigers

The Bangladeshi batsmen fought hard to chase down a massive 382-run target set by Australia but eventually came up 48 runs short as they succumbed to their third defeat of the ICC World Cup 2019 at Nottingham on Thursday.

Eventually, a 166-run innings off 147 balls from David Warner and a 10-ball 32 from Glenn Maxwell made the difference between the two sides.

1st Innings

After winning the toss and choosing to bat first, Australia started steadily before the openers Warner and Aaron Finch accelerated.

The captain led from the front and scored his third consecutive fifty-plus score in the tournament before Mashrafe Bin Mortaza turned to the part-time medium pace bowling of Soumya Sarkar and he finally got the wicket of Finch with the score on 121.

Usman Khawaja then joined Warner and the two put up a brilliant 192-run partnership to take the score to 313 before Soumya was brought back to dismiss Warner for 166.

The century included 14 fours and five maximums as he scored his second century in this World Cup.

The signs of a defeat were ominous for the Tigers as their intensity in the field and in bowling dropped as the Aussies piled on the runs.

Maxwell then came in and took the bowling to all parts of the ground as he plundered three sixes and two fours to take the score past 350 for the Aussies.

Rubel Hossain - who was playing his first match in the World Cup - then managed to run out Maxwell and then Soumya had his third wicket when he dismissed Khawaja who made 89 off 72 balls.

Mustafizur Rahman, then took the wicket of Steven Smith before rain came in at the end of the 49th over.

It didn’t last long however and the last over was bowled as Australia posted 381/5 in 50 overs.

2nd Innings

The openers Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar started steadily but then a bad mix-up and a direct-hit by Finch had Soumya out for 10.

Tamim and the in-form Shakib Al Hasan then formed a nice partnership before Marcus Stoinis got the big wicket of Shakib after he scored 41 off as many balls.

Mushfiqur Rahim was in next, but with the asking rate climbing, Starc managed to take the wicket of Tamim, who scored 62, his highest in this tournament so far.

Liton Das, who scored an aggressive 94 not-out last match came in next and was struck on the helmet by an excellent bouncer by Mitchell Starc first ball.

He managed to continue and just as he started to get his innings going, Adam Zampa had him out LBW for 20.

With Bangladesh staring at a big defeat, Mahmudullah came in and formed an excellent 127-run partnership with Mushfiqur Rahim to bring Bangladesh right back in the contest.

In fact, after 39 overs, Bangladesh were 234/4 and Australia were 237/1 so there wasn’t much difference between the two sides.

Both batsmen were scoring 10-11 runs per over but the asking rate kept climbing and once it had crossed 16, it forced Mahmudullah to play too many shots and lose his wicket.

The right-hander scored an aggressive 69 off just 50 balls before Nathan Coulter-Nile took his wicket with the score on 302/5.

Sabbir Rahman - who was also making his World Cup debut and had a bad time on the field dropping the catch of Warner when he was on 12 - chopped the ball on to his stumps and was out for a golden duck to make things worse for him.

With these wickets, the match was well and truly over, but Mushfiq kept his wicket in tact and scored a century to guide Bangladesh to their highest ever ODI total at 333/8.

This was Mushfiq’s eighth ODI ton and his first in World Cups and it had nine fours and one six.

Points Table

With this win, the Aussies reach the top of the table with five wins from six games and 10 points. New Zealand  are on second spot with four wins from five games and nine points while England and India are third and fourth with eight and seven points respectively.

Bangladesh are fifth and they will now need to win all of their remaining games, given that there is no rain to stand a chance of making it to the semi-finals with 11 points. Their next match is against Afghanistan on Monday with games against India and Pakistan still to come.

Key Stats

Shakib Al Hasan has been dethroned by David Warner as the 2019 World Cup’s top run getter with 447 runs from six games. The number one ranked all-rounder is on 425 runs from five games. Aaron Finch is third on the list with 396 runs.

As for bowlers, Mitchell Starc reaches the top of the list for highest wicket-takers with 15 scalps from six games. He is followed closely by another southpaw, Mohammad Amir, who has 13 wickets from just four matches. England’s Jofra Archer is in third spot with 12 wickets from five games.

David Warner now has six 150+ scores in ODI cricket, just one behind Rohit Sharma, who leads the way with seven 150+ scores. Chris Gayle and Sachin Tendulkar are third on the list with five 150+ scores.