Taskin starred with the ball, Litton led the way with the bat, and comeback man Saif contributed a fine all-round display
Bangladesh 138 for 2 (Litton 54*, Saif 36*) beat Netherlands 136 for 8 (Nidamanuru 28, Taskin 4-28, Saif 2-18) by eight wickets
Taskin Ahmed, Saif Hassan and captain Litton Das played starring roles as Bangladesh eased to an eight-wicket win over Netherlands in the first T20I in Sylhet.
Taskin took four wickets and Saif, playing his first T20I since October 2023, bagged his first two T20I wickets as Bangladesh restricted the visitors to 136 after asking them to bat. Saif completed his comeback with a quickfire cameo to support Litton’s brisk half-century as Bangladesh won with 6.3 overs to spare.
Taskin keeps Netherlands quiet
Max O’Dowd started well for Netherlands, driving and flicking Shoriful Islam for three fours in the second over. He then launched Mahedi Hasan, who opened the bowling, for a six down the ground in the third.
But Taskin struck with his first ball, getting O’Dowd to spoon a catch to cover off a leading edge.
Netherlands managed just nine more runs from the 2.5 remaining overs in the powerplay, with their only boundary coming through another leading edge from Teja Nidamanuru that just evaded a leaping cover fielder.
Then, Taskin struck again with the first ball of his second over, the eighth of the innings. Vikramjit Singh looked to switch gears and go down the ground, but could only pick out long-on.
Saif ends Netherlands counterattack
Nidamanuru counterattacked, pulling Taskin for a six later in that over before squeezing one past short third for four. That began a stretch that brought Netherlands 27 runs off just 11 balls, before Saif nipped the counterattack in the bud with his maiden international wicket.
Netherlands captain Scott Edwards tried to sweep the offspinner but couldn’t get distance on his shot, and Jaker Ali ran to his right to take a brilliant diving catch at long leg. Two balls later, Saif had Nidamanuru holing out to deep midwicket.
Mustafizur Rahman got on the board when a short ball drew a top edge from Shariz Ahmad’s attempted pull to leave Netherlands five wickets down in the 13th over.
Taskin picked up two more wickets in his remaining two overs, and Netherlands added just 52 to their score over their last eight overs.
