New Zealand shot out Bangladesh for the lowest total of the tournament so far to register athumping 167-run victory in an inconsequential Group A league match of the Champions Trophyat Colombo today.
Bangladesh were bowled out for 77, their second lowest score in one-day internationals, in just 19.3 overs afterdefending champions New Zealand had posted 244 for nine in their stipulated 50overs.
However, with both the teams already out of the tournament, the result of this last league match was only ofacademic interest.
Bangladesh captain Khaled Mashud won the toss and put New Zealand in to bat. The Kiwis lost opener Nathan Astle in thethird over before top-scorer Mathew Sinclair and captain Stephen Fleming put the innings back on track.
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Sinclair batted through most of the innings to score 70 off 122 balls with five fours. His second wicket associationwith Fleming was worth 66 runs in about 11 overs.
Fleming scored 31 off 40 balls with five boundaries. New Zealand innings was also helped by substantialcontributions from Scott Styris and Chris Harris, who made 26 runs each, and Jacob Oram who scored 30.
Bangladesh also lost their opener early, with Al Sahariar becoming the first of the four victims of Shane Bond off thethird ball of the innings.
That just triggered a collapse as Bangladesh lost a wicket in each of thefirst five overs to crash to 19 for five. Four of those wickets were claimed byBond who finished with figures of four for 21 from five overs.
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Brief Scores:New Zealand 244 for 9 in 50 overs (M Sinclair 70, S Fleming31, J Oram 30; Mohd Ashraful 3-26, Manjural Islam 2-30, Khaled Mahmud 2-41) beat Bangladesh 77 in 19.3 overs (Tushar Imran 20, Mohd Rafique 17; Shane Bond 4-21).
PTI
