Australia go hard early in pursuit of 141 against Bangladesh
Travis Head and David Warner went hard in the powerplay as Australia are cruising in a chase of 141.
Bangladesh got an opportunity to put Australia under pressure early but Warner was dropped by Towhid Hridoy off Tanzim Hasan Sakib in the second over.
Australia were 64-0 off 6.2 before rain stopped play.
Towhid Hridoy made a breezy 40 after Najmul Hossain Shanto’s 41 but Bangladesh were restricted to 140-8 after 20 overs.
Pat Cummins starred with the ball with a hat-trick. Mahmudullah, Mahedi Hasan and Hridoy were his victims. This was the first hat-trick of this year’s T20 World Cup.
Asked to bat first, Bangladesh were off to the worst possible start as they lost opener Tanzid Hasan early.
Mitchell Starc looked to use the breeze by going full and taking the ball away from the southpaw and a little under edge saw him get cleaned up for a duck.
Najmul Hossain Shanto showed positive intent against both the new-ball bowlers. He was the aggressor in the partnership of 58 off 48 balls between him and Litton Das.
Litton, on the other end, played out a maiden off Josh Hazlewood and took 10 deliveries to get off the mark.
He did get a couple of boundaries off Starc later but generally struggled to get going on a pitch that looked decent for batting.
Adam Zampa got the better of him in the ninth over as a desperate attempt to bail himself out of trouble with the sweep went wrong.
The wicketkeeper-batter scored 16 off 23.
Bangladesh made an experiment by sending Rishad Hossain up the order to counter Australia’s spin duo but it did not come off as Glenn Maxwell snared him next over.
Shanto looked good in this game after a string of low scores. After a great start, he slowed down a touch and just when he needed to up the ante, he missed a straight one from Zampa and got out leg-before. He made 41 off 36.
Shakib Al Hasan (eight) failed again with the bat as he was picked up by the new number one all-rounder Marcus Stoinis.
Towhid Hridoy (40 off 28) looked a million dollars with the bat with his strong strikes on the on side. But the others could not really put the foot down and Bangladesh fell well short of the average first-innings winning score.
