April 12, 2011

2nd ODI: Australia vs Bangladesh

On 11th April, second ODI match of the Australia tour of Bangladesh was played at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Bangladesh. The toss was won by the hosts and they chose to bat first.

Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes opened the batting innings for Bangladesh. Both the openers failed to stand for longer time as they could not resist the Aussies bowling attack. At one point of time, they lost 5 wickets and scored only 88 runs in 27 overs. Later on, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah put up a partnership of 79 runs that helped Bangla's to end up with a decent total to defend. They successfully played for 50 overs and scored a total of 229 runs with the loss of 7 wickets (BAN - 229/7, 50 over). Mushfiqur Rahim was unbeaten scoring 81 runs. Mitchell Johnson picked up 3 wickets.

Aussies needed 230 runs in 50 overs with a very good batting line-up. Shane Watson and Brad Haddin started to play for the team. Shane Watson right from the start of the innings played very aggressively but Brad Haddin kept his calm and gave strike to his partner as much as possible. Brad Haddin did not make it big as he was back to pavilion after scoring only 8 runs in 19 deliveries. Later on, Ricky Ponting joined the party and gave a good company to his partner. It was Shane Watson's day. He cruised in to score 50 runs in just 26 balls and then got his century in 69 delivers. After this, Shane Watson became even more aggressive. He scored 85 runs in just 27 deliveries thereby adding his total score of 185 runs in just 96 deliveries. This was an unbelievable batting performance given by any batsmen so far. He hit 15 fours and 15 sixes in the match. Shane Watson created a new world record for the most number of sixes (15 sixes) in a match. In just 26 overs, Australia managed to chase their target successfully scoring a total of 232 runs with the loss of 1 wicket (AUS - 232/1, 26 over). Shakib Al Hasan was the only bowler whose economy rate was less than 6 (5 runs per over).

Australia won the match by 9 wickets. Man of the match was Shane Watson for his brilliant performance.

If the total was more, then Shane Watson would have broke the record of Sachin Tendulkar and become the highest run getter in a match and would have been in the history book.

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