Bangladesh overcame sloppy fielding and erratic bowling to beat co-host Oman by 26 runs on Tuesday and keep its hopes alive of advancing in the T20 World Cup.<\/p>\n
Scotland, which upset Bangladesh in their Group B opening game, eliminated spirited debutant Papua New Guinea by recording a 17-run victory earlier Tuesday. The top two teams advance to the Super 12. Scotland faces Oman on Thursday, when Bangladesh meets PNG.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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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 9-127.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll take this win, but I think there are a lot of areas we need to improve,\u201d Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah said. \u201cShakib 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE: <\/strong>Teammates' terse response to Simmons' 76ers return<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> EPL stars praised after fast actions helps to save stricken fan<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite a chaseable target,\u201d said Oman skipper Zeeshan Maqsood. \u201cWe needed 50-odd runs in 36 balls, it\u2019s not a big margin \u2026 sorry to the people, we couldn\u2019t make them happy. We have to see where we went wrong, come back and crack that.\u201d<\/p>\n A 92-run partnership between Richie Barrington (70) and wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Cross (45) formed the cornerstone of Scotland\u2019s total of 9-165 despite PNG claiming six wickets for just 15 runs in the last two overs.<\/p>\n PNG came back strongly after losing half of its side within the first six overs for just 35 runs, but was bowled out for 148 with three balls remaining.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got just over par (total) on that wicket,\u201d Barrington said. \u201cAt first, we didn\u2019t have a target in mind, and just wanted to get used to the wicket. Thankfully, we managed to get that big partnership which was quite key in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Norman Vanua gave PNG an outside chance with a top score of 47 while Kiplin Doriga (18) and Chad Soper (16) added late runs.<\/p>\n Fast bowler Josh Davey picked up 4-18 that included the key wicket of Vanua, who was caught behind in the 18th over.<\/p>\n Earlier, Barrington featured in the beefy third-wicket stand as he struck six fours and three sixes off 49 balls. Cross consumed 36 balls and smashed two fours and two sixes.<\/p>\n PNG did well late in the innings when Charles Amini made two good catches in the deep to dismiss Cross and Barrington. Fast bowler Kabua Morea (4-31) claimed three of his wickets in the last over during which Michael Leask (9) was run out.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can get more exposure we might be able to express ourselves better,\u201d PNG captain Assad Vala said. \u201cScotland are a really good bowling team and they put us under pressure and we crumbled. The lower order brought us back into it.\u201d<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scotland eliminates PNG<\/h2>\n
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