KHULNA - The BCB XI, riding on fireworks from Ziaur Rahman, dampened Bangladesh's preparations for the ODI series against West Indies, beating them in the warm-up game in Khulna by five wickets. A crowd of a few hundred cheered on local hero Ziaur, who thumped 51 off 54 balls to finish off the chase with five balls to spare.
The chase of 273 began with a 71-run opening stand between Imrul Kayes, who made 53, and Jahurul Islam. A couple of cameo partnerships followed as Mominul Haque and Asif Ahmed made 45 and 34 respectively. The finishing touch came via an unbeaten 86-run sixth-wicket stand between Ziaur and Farhad Reza, who chipped in with 38 off 29 balls. The result should provide warning enough for the Bangladesh players, who looked flat with the ball - particularly of concern was left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak's bowling; he was handled quite easily towards the end of the BCB XI innings.
The Bangladesh batsmen were also in the spotlight. In a controlled environment against a much weaker bowling attack than the one they faced in the Tests over the previous two weeks, the amount of runs they scored would have given them confident, but that wasn't the case for most parts of the innings.
Barring Tamim Iqbal, none of the other specialist batsmen crossed the 35-run mark. The second-highest scorer of the innings was allrounder Marshall Ayub, who made an unbeaten 37 off 32 balls from No. 7. He ensured the side progressed past the 250-run mark, hitting three fours and a six.
Naeem Islam, captain Mushfiqur Rahim and Nasir Hossain were all dimissed in the thirties while Anamul Haque, tipped to make his ODI debut as Tamim's opening partner, struggled for 42 minutes to score 9 runs off 28 balls.
Tamim was the exception, hitting a 67-ball 72 but his dismissal in the 21st over completely slowed down the run-scoring. He struck 13 fours, which helped him make up for a slow start. West Indies take on the BCB XI in a practice match on Wednesday.
BRIEF SCORE: BCB XI 274 for 5 (Kayes 53, Ziaur 51*) beat Bangladesh 272 for 8 (Tamim 72) by five wickets