Bangladesh Under-19 cricket team tamed their Kuwait counterparts with both bat and bowl on Saturday and registered 222 runs' colossal victory at Sharjah Cricket Stadium in the UAE.
Winning the toss Kuwait invited Bangladesh to bat first and the Tigers posted mammoth 291 runs on the board before being bowled out in the ultimate over of the innings.
Bangladesh opener Mahfijul Islam slaughtered Kuwait bowlers to hit his first century of the event. He piled up 112 runs off 119 balls hitting 12 boundaries alongside four massives.
All the Bangladesh top order batters got starts but Iftekhar Hossain, who got out on two. Aich Mollah collected 22 runs, Ariful Islam 23, Tahjibul Islam 25, SM Mehorab missed a fifty for eight runs while skipper Rakibul Hasan batted for 21 runs.
Kuwait used nine bowlers and Abdul Sadiq was the most successful among them. He picked three wickets conceding 40 runs delivering 8.2 overs. Besides, Henry Thomas and Mohammad Umar shared two wickets each while Abdullah Farooq and Mohammad Bastaki took one wicket apiece.
Chasing a mammoth target of 292, Kuwait batters had been struggling against mighty Bangladesh spin attack from the very beginning and started losing wickets at regular intervals and were bowled out on 64 runs sustaining 25.3 overs. Skipper Meet Bhavsar was the leading scorer, who played a 43-runs' knock while Mirza Ahmed (11) was just the 2nd batter to reach two digit figure. Rest Kuwait batters made telephonic digits with four ducks, three singles and couple of double runs' innings!
Ripon Mandol hauled three wickets while Rakibul and Meherob scalped two wickets respectively. In addition, Naimur Rahman and Musfik Hossain shared one wicket apiece.
Boys in Red and Green started their ACC Under-19 Asia Cup 2021 mission with a substantial154-run victory over Nepal Under-19 boys on December 24 and will take on Sri Lankan boys in the last group round match on December 28.
Top two teams of the group will play the semifinals with two table topper of Group-A. Both the semis will be held on December 30 while the final of the event will be staged on January 1 at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
