As cricketing nations around the world are preparing for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the UAE and Oman, Bangladesh on Wednesday defeated the mighty Australians by 5 wickets and take a lead by 2-0. On August 3, Bangladesh defeated Australia in the first of the five T20Is by 23 runs to register their first-ever win over them in T20I. Now, within a span of 24 hours, Mahmudullah & Team secured the second victory of the series and one win away to script history. Bangladesh restricted Australia at a low-scoring total of 121 runs at the flat pitch of Shere Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka. Left-arm speedster Mustafizur Rahman took the highest number of wickets – 3-23 in 4 overs. For Australia, all-rounder Mitchell Marsh was the highest run-getter as he scored 45 runs in 42 balls with the help of 5 boundaries. For his innings of 37 runs, Afif Hossain was named player of the match. During the presentation, Afif Hossain said, “I Was thinking I should stay in the middle till the end. We just had to stay calm and knock around. That was the plan. Nurul played well too to take the pressure off. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, you just got to do it for the team. On losing the second consecutive match, Mathew Wade said, “We were in a good position today with a couple of set batters, but didn’t cash in at the back end. Should have got high 130s or 140s, which would have been a winning score on that track. The bowlers from both teams have done really well. Bowling isn’t the problem for us, got to tidy up with the bat.”
