Bangladesh suffer humiliating ODI defeat to Zimbabwe

Blessing Muzarabani was busy celebrating after taking a catch with a clenched fist. Richard Ngarava gestured to the sky after dismissing Mustafizur Rahman. The Zimbabwe players in the Harare Stadium dugout were in ecstasy. This sums up Bangladesh's first ODI of the series against Zimbabwe — a 25-run defeat due to batting failure.

Just days earlier at the same Harare Sports Club, Bangladesh had lost the only Test by an innings and 85 runs. Nahid Rana and Taskin Ahmed had given hope of a comeback, but the batsmen failed to chase a modest target of 142, collapsing to 116 all out. With this win, Zimbabwe took a 1-0 lead in the three-match ODI series.

Chasing the target, Bangladesh were reduced to 17 for 3 in just 4.1 overs. The batting failure was more to blame than Zimbabwe's excellent fielding. In the fourth ball of the second over, Tanzid Hasan Tamim tried to flick Blessing Muzarabani, and Newman Nyamhuri took a diving catch at deep square leg after two attempts.

Tanzid scored just 8 runs. Like him, Soumya Sarkar (6) and Najmul Hossain Shanto (3) also fell in single digits. Towhid Hridoy and Nurul Hasan Sohan then steadied the innings with a 49-run fourth-wicket partnership. However, after their partnership was broken, the Bangladesh batting line-up collapsed like a house of cards.