Tigers’ batting frailty exposed again

Before Zimbabwe's medium pacer Luke Jongwe strolled in to deliver the second ball of the 12th over, Bangladesh were well and truly in command of the fourth Twenty20 International in Mirpur yesterday, with both openers still at the middle and 101 runs already on the board.

With that delivery, Jongwe broke the opening stand by getting opener Tanzid Tamim caught at point after a well-made 52 off 37 balls.

After that, thousands of home fans at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur looked on bewildered as in the next 51 deliveries, Bangladesh lost their remaining nine wickets for just 42 to be bundled out for a meagre 143 in 19.5 overs -- a display that highlights the frailty of the Tiger's batting in T20Is.

Before everything went awry, the innings had started swimmingly for the hosts as their fresh opening pair of Tanzid and Soumya Sarkar gave them their best start in the series by far.

Soumya, who returned to action for the first time since hurting his knee mid-March, replaced the out-of-form Liton Das.

The left-hander looked jittery and struggled to time the ball on most occasions. However, he picked his spots well as he hit a six and a four against Brain Bennet from reverse sweeps and also hit Jongwe for a six with a lofted cover drive.

At the other end, Tanzid was seemingly batting on a different surface as he was in command from the start, bringing up his second T20I half-century off 34 balls.

At the halfway point of the innings, the Zimbabwean shoulders on the field had slumped, especially after Bennet dropped Tanzid on 51 in the penultimate ball of the 10th over from Sikandar Raza.

But things changed dramatically from the 12th over when Jongwe first dismissed Tanzid and then removed his opening partner Soumya, getting him trapped LBW with a fuller-length delivery.

From then on, the Bangladesh batters had no answers to the Zimbabwean attack as spinners Bennet and Raza dried up the boundaries and collectively took three wickets, exposing Bangladesh's long tail with bowling all-rounder Rishad Hossain coming at No.7 in the match.

The Tigers couldn't hit a boundary for 36 balls, from 12.1 to 18.2 overs, after Tanzid and Soumya had collectively hit nine fours and three sixes in their opening stand.

Zimbabwean pacers, who were finding life difficult against Tanzid, suddenly found their rhythm as the Bangladesh innings crumbled.

Even with a win in this match, this sorry batting display from Bangladesh against a team that couldn't even qualify for the ICC T20 World Cup will remain as a terrible sign for the Tigers with the tournament less than a month away.