New Zealand gave themselves a perfect boost ahead of the World Cup by beating Bangladesh 2-0 in the three-match series with a seven-wicket win in the final one-day international in Dhaka on Tuesday. Will Young and Adam Milne played with bat and ball respectively, with Young hitting 70 off 80 balls to guide New Zealand to 175-3. Milne’s 4-34 restricted the hosts to 171 in 34.3 overs at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka. Stand-in skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto top-scored with 76 runs for Bangladesh but could not give the hosts a competitive score due to lack of support from the other side after opting to bat first.
New Zealand overshot their target despite losing Finn Allen (28) and Dean Foxcroft (0) to Shoriful Islam in successive balls, while Young added 81 runs with the in-form Henry Nicholls for the third wicket.
By the time left-arm spinner Nasum Ahmed Young bowled, New Zealand were in good control.
Nicholls, who made 44 and 49 runs in the previous two matches, made 50 this time, with a single off Mahmudullah Riyad.
Tom Blundell (23 not out) hit a boundary to take New Zealand home with 91 balls to spare.
Cole McConchie and Trent Boult earlier complemented Milne, who played his first match of the series and claimed 2-18 and 2-33 respectively, denying Bangladesh any serious momentum in the match.
The Kiwis, who lost the previous two series in Bangladesh 4-0 in 2010 and 3-0 in 2013, won the second match by 86 runs on Saturday. The first match was washed out by rain.
“The World Cup is just around the corner – it’s great to get the first win since 2008,” Young, the man of the match, said in a briefing afterwards.
“This group plays together a lot, we get along well and it’s a lot of fun,” he added.
Young said while he could not predict what conditions the Kiwis would face in India when the World Cup starts on October 5, he hoped “it would be similar to this”.
Bangladesh initially rested the key players but with the series on the line, they brought back stalwarts Najmul, Mushfiqur Rahim and Shoriful Islam. However, it did little to improve their performance.
Najmul, leading Bangladesh for the first time, held one end to score his fifth ODI fifty but wickets continued to fall regularly from the other end.
“Our batsmen didn’t score big runs,” Najmul said. “Hopefully next time the batters will take responsibility and hit long.”
Milne and Boult struck early to reduce Bangladesh to 35-3, before Najmul and Mushfiqur provided brief resistance with a 53-run fourth wicket stand.
Mushfiqur’s dismissal to Lockie Ferguson for 18 put New Zealand back on top and the visitors did not lose momentum again.
McConchie ended any real chance of Bangladesh achieving a fighting score by dismissing Najmul with his second ball of the day, with the left-hander hitting 10 fours in his 84-ball innings.
(This story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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