Tamim, Somya guide Bangladesh to easy win over Windies

Bangladesh made light work of chasing down 262 to beat West Indies with five overs to spare in the tri-nation series opener in Ireland on Tuesday.

Bangladesh scored 264-2 after limiting West Indies to 261-9. The West Indies was 205-2 in the 41st over but wasted a great platform given by opener Shai Hope, who scored a second successive century in the series, reports AP.

But Hope was overshadowed by Bangladesh openers Tamim Iqbal, with 80, and Soumya Sarkar, with 73. They combined to make a cautious start, then accelerated to make 144 in 26 overs.

Shakib Al Hasan, with 61 off 61 balls, and Mushfiqur Rahim, with 32 off 25, finished off Bangladesh’s opening win.

The West Indies won the toss and decided to bat first, but Hope wasn’t reunited with John Campbell. They flayed tournament host Ireland with a world record opening stand of 365 on Sunday, but Campbell was not available on Tuesday because of a sore back.

Hope started with Sunil Ambris (38) for a very useful 89, and made the biggest stand of 115 with Roston Chase (51).

But when Chase and Hope were dismissed by Mashrafe Mortaza within three balls, the West Indies was unprepared and collapsed.

The spinners and Mohammad Saifuddin tied up the West Indies, who added only 56 runs for the loss of seven wickets in the last nine overs.

In reply, Tamim and Soumya took 11 overs to gauge the pitch and bowling and preserve their wickets, then opened up and had no problems.

Soumya surprised when he was out, but it took a great juggling catch on the boundary by Darren Bravo.

Tamim was out about 10 overs later, also missing a century, to another very good catch, this time at short midwicket by Jason Holder, who had to go low on the run. By then, the openers left Bangladesh needing only 66 from 13 overs, and they got there easily.

Bangladesh play Ireland on Thursday.