Bangladesh keep Super 12 hopes alive

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Wiese leads Namibia to big win over Dutch

AL AMERAT, Oman, Oct 20, (AP): Bangladesh overcame sloppy fielding and erratic bowling to beat co-host Oman by 26 runs and keep their hopes alive of advancing in the T20 World Cup. Scotland, which upset Bangladesh in their Group B opening game, eliminated spirited debutant Papua New Guinea by recording a 17-run victory earlier . The top two teams advance to the Super 12. Scotland face Oman on Thursday, when Bangladesh meet PNG. Opening batsman Mohammad Naim, who replaced Soumya Sarkar, reached 64 and Shakib Al Hasan scored 42 off 29 balls before Bangladesh was bowled out for 153 off the last ball. Mustafizur Rahman bowled five wide balls in his first over and also dropped one of the two early catches before bagging 4-36 as Bangladesh got its act together in the latter half of the innings and restricted Oman to 127-9. “We’ll take this win, but I think there are a lot of areas we need to improve,” Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah said. “Shakib and Naim batted brilliantly … but we should have done better with the new ball, bowled a lot of wides. We need to see those areas and correct them.”

Oman had a sniff until opener Jatinder Singh (40) was at the crease, but once Shakib (3-28) had him caught in the deep and off-spinner Mahedi Hasan bowled an economical spell of 1-14, the co-host capitulated. Earlier, after losing the toss, Oman also had a below-par performance in the field with Naim twice getting dropped. Shakib and Naim both shared 80-run third wicket stand but Bangladesh lost eight wickets for 52 runs once careless Shakib got run out in the 14th over. Fast bowlers Bilal Khan grabbed 3-18 and Fayyaz Butt, who took a spectacular diving catch off his own bowling to dismiss Mahedi for 0 early on, took 3-30.

“It was quite a chaseable target,” said Oman skipper Zeeshan Maqsood. “We needed 50-odd runs in 36 balls, it’s not a big margin … sorry to the people, we couldn’t make them happy. We have to see where we went wrong, come back and crack that.” David Wiese’s unbeaten 60 off 40 balls helped Namibia beat The Netherlands by six wickets in Abu Dhabi . Wiese struck five sixes and four boundaries as Namibia reached 166-4 with an over to spare in Group A. The Netherlands had earlier scored 164-4 with opening batsman Max O’Dowd getting 70 off 56 balls. Scott Edwards added 21 off 11 balls.Wiese qualified to play for Namibia because his father was born in the country. It is Wiese’s second World Cup after representing South Africa five years ago in the T20 World Cup. “It (feels) is awesome, to be honest,” Wiese said. “Means a lot to me, in a World Cup on international stage is special and to put in a big performance for Namibia, I’m glad to get this opportunity to play international cricket.” The experience of Wiese came in handy for Namibia as he dominated a 93-run partnership with captain Gerhard Erasmus, who made 32.

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