Bangla need one more

Keep quarter-final hopes alive with a comprehensive win over the Dutch.

The presenter at the post-match ceremony at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium thought that the Man-of-the-Match award was as much left-arm spinner Abdur Razzaks,for his bowling figures of 3/29,as it was Imrul Kayess,the eventual winner for his unbeaten 73. But standing somewhere behind his team-mates,Shafiul Islam smiled to himself. Fast bowlers are barely noticed in Bangladeshs spin-dominant attack,let alone when they end up wicketless.

Bangladesh may have won by six-wickets,putting away their 161-target without much of a fuss,but it could have been a whole lot different had Shafiul not bowled his scintillating opening spell,one that spilt Dutch blood on their victory plate. While Razzak came around and added the seasoning with three crucial wickets,no award could possibly commemorate Shafiuls figures of 9.2-3-15-0,one that drained the Dutch spine dry of runs.

In his opening spell of six overs,Shafiul bowled three maidens,and was hit for a total of seven runs. Backing him to the hilt was Rubel Hossain,who started off with figures of 4-0-7-0,but unlike Shafiul,the medium pacer polished off Pieter Seelaar at the end to finish with one wicket for 36 runs. And it was the pair in tandem that tied the Dutch in ugly knots,persuading them to shimmy after the spinners and lose their wickets.

Backs against the wall

With their backs against the wall after the harrowing defeat to the West Indies in Dhaka,Bangladesh had arrived at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury in Chittagong to put up a fight in their campaign. While Kayes has been the more obvious hero for the cricket-crazed country,Shafiul has come to the party as much as his batting counterpart. With a few limbs already dangling out of the World Cup,Shafiul smashed a career high of 24 against England to keep their quarters hopes alive. On Monday,his bowling nearly gave a tangible energy to that hope.

With almost no runs on the board to write home about,skipper Shakib Al Hasan got the first break-through when he trapped opener Wesley Barresi for 10 in the last over of the mandatory fielding restrictions. After that,it became a free for all stage,as the dime-a-dozen left-arm spinners picked off the wickets clinically.

Although it was a small chase,the runs still had to be scored by the volatile Bangladeshi batsmen the same bunch who were dismissed for 58 against the West Indians.

The innings looked to go down the West Indies way when Tamim Iqbal was bowled by Mudassar Bukhari off just the fourth ball of the innings for duck. But thats when Kayes,who played out as many as 70 dot balls against England on the same ground,did more of the same to shut the Dutch out of the game completely. This time,he played out 72 dot balls against the Peter Borren-led side.

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And in Junaid Siddique,Kayes found an able ally,blocking out the good balls while simultaneously converting easy ones into quick twos. The pressure was off,and by the time their 91-run first wicket stand came to an end when Junaid 35 holed out off Borrens bowling Bangladesh were well on their way to making the equation for the quarterfinals a simple one.

As Shahriar Nafees,another untested Bangladeshi batsman,and Kayes cobbled 59 runs for the second wicket,the Dutch drooped at their shoulders,staring at their fifth defeat in as many matches. Kayes took home the award for his unbeaten 73,but just like against England,Shafiul had played more than just a walk-on part in the win.