South Africa defeated Bangladesh by four wickets in a low-scoring thriller at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York on Tuesday to go top of the points table of Group D.
South Africa are placed alongside Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Netherlands in Group D and they have three matches in the T20 World Cup so far which puts them on the summit of their group.
After the Proteas’ third win of the tournament, this is how the T20 World Cup points table looks like
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Earlier, Bangladesh, just like South Africa, had a terrible start to their innings as the Proteas pacer wreaked havoc on their batters as all of Tanzid Hasan (9 off 9), Najmul Hossain Shanto (14 off 23), Liton Das (9 off 13) and Shakib Al Hasan (3 off 4) were back to the pavilion, leaving their side 50-4 in 9.5 overs.
Experienced all-rounder Mahmudullah and Towhid Hridoy’s 44-run partnership brought some stability to the struggling batting lineup. Hridoy played a great knock (37 off 34) under the difficult New York conditions but he was removed by Kagiso Rabada.
However, despite losing his partner, Mahmudullah remained on the pitch and stayed till the last over but he couldn’t guide his team to victory as Bangladesh ended their innings at 109-7.
In the first innings, South Africa set a 114-run target for Bangladesh.
Bangladesh bowlers were on top from the first over as Tanzim Hasan Sakib bamboozled the Proteas’ opening pair in his first two overs with Reeze Hendricks (0) and Quinton de Kock (18 off 11) returning to the pavilion early.
The next victim was no other than the Proteas’ skipper Aiden Markram as he was clean-bowled by Taskin Ahmed for just four runs in the fourth over. Bangladesh continued with their brilliant bowling as Tanzim Hasan struck once again and removed Tristan Stubbs for a duck.
It looked like yet another collapse while batting first in New York but David Miller and Heinrich Klaasen formed a crucial 79-run partnership and helped their side reach a decent total.
Klaasen contributed valuable 46 runs before losing his wicket to Taskin while Miller departed for the pavilion after posting 29 runs as South Africa concluded their innings at 113-6 runs in the allocated overs.
For Bangladesh, Tanzim Hasan picked three wickets, Taskin got two while Rishad Hossain bagged one.
