Bangladesh U19s lose to Afghanistan U19s in warm-up

Bangladesh’s batting trouble continued in New Zealand as they lost the first official warm-up game in the 2018 U-19 World Cup in Christchurch Monday. The young Bangladesh Tigers failed to chase down 206 against Afghanistan U-19 to lose the game by 56 runs. The Bangladesh bowlers had done a good job after Afghanistan were sent in to bat first. The Afghans were restricted to 206. However, the Bangladesh batsman failed, posting only 150 on the board. Except the two openers, no other Bangladesh batsmen reached double figure. Bangladesh got an early blow, losing opener Naim Sheikh for a duck in the third over of the innings. The loss was recovered by the other opening batsman Pinak Ghosh and captain Saif Hasan, who added 92 for the second wicket. Pinak struck a 56-ball 54 before getting pinned in front by Qais Ahmen. Saif scored 43. The dismissals triggered a collapse as Bangladesh lost eight wickets for only 58 runs, thus ending their chase miserably. Earlier, Bangladesh Hasan Mahmud led the bowling attack with four wickets conceding 46 runs in nine overs as Afghanistan were all out for a low score. Robiul Haque bagged three wickets while Tipu Sultan picked up two. For Afghanistan, Azmatullah Omarzai topped the innings with a flashy 81. The right-handed batsman faced 66 deliveries and hammered half a dozen boundaries and as many over boundaries. Bahir Shah and Ibrahim Zadran added 44 and 32 respectively to the tally.