Dhaka, Aug 3: Left-arm spinner Nasum Ahmed claimed a career-best 4-19 as Bangladesh successfully defended a moderate 131-7 and beat Australia by 23 runs in the first of their five Twenty20s on Tuesday.
Australia was bowled out for 108 in 20 overs, it's lowest total against Bangladesh in the shortest format.
Left-arm pacers Mustafizur Rahman and Shoriful Islam took two wickets apiece to complement Nasum and secure Bangladesh's first victory against Australia in five encounters.
Failing to deal with the spinners cost Australia.
Shakib Al Hasan, another left-arm spinner, and offspinner Mahedi Hasan also played their part, taking a wicket each.
Mitchell Marsh, who struck three half-centuries in five matches against the West Indies, was the only Australian to sustain any resistance. He made a run-a-ball 45 before being sixth man out.
The combination of Nasum, Shakib and Mahedi reduced Australia to 11-3 in the third over.
Mahedi broke through with the first ball to dismiss Alex Carey, Nasum got Josh Philippe stumped for 9, and Shakib accounted for Moises Henriques before Marsh got going.
With Shakib and Mahedi denying Australia a flow of runs, Nasum ripped through the middle order in a gem of spin bowling.
Marsh kept the visitors' hopes alive with calculated aggression, and his confidence grew after hitting Shakib for six. Marsh was undone in Nasum's last over when he went for a slog-sweep, and Australia's chances effectively went with him.
Made to bat first, Shakib top-scored for Bangladesh with 36 off 33, and opener Mohammad Naim struck a 29-ball 30, clobbering two fours and as many sixes. Afif Hossain added an unbeaten 23 off 16.
Naim flicked Australia speedster Mitchell Starc for a six over midwicket with a cracking shot in the second ball of the innings.
Starc's new ball partner, Josh Hazlewood, broke through with the wicket of Soumya Sarkar on 2, and Naim was removed by legspinner Adam Zampa.
Shakib and captain Mahmudullah played with caution but failed to rotate the scoreboard rapidly.
Hazlewood (3-24) broke the partnership, dismissing Mahmudullah for 20 with a knuckle ball.
Hazlewood also took the crucial wicket of Shakib when he appeared set to pace the scoreboard.
Starc got a couple of tailenders but Afif Hossain held up one end to help the side go past 130.
The second match is on Wednesday.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).