Left-arm spinner Nasum Ahmed turned the ball square and mixed his variations intelligently as he bagged four wickets to rattle the Afghanistan top-order and help his team to a 61-run victory in the opening T20I at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka on Thursday. Nasum claimed the important wickets of Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Darwish Rasooli and Karim Janat to jolt the visitors in their run-chase of 156 runs.
Here's a look at the brilliant spell bowled by Nasum:
It proved to be an easy win at the end for the home side after captain Mahmudullah had won the toss and decided to bat.
Wicketkeeper-batter Liton Das played a sublime knock of 60 runs before getting out to Fazalhaq Farooqi. However, the pace at which Das scored laid down a perfect platform for the rest of the batters to take the final score past the 150-run mark.
Farooqi and Azmatullah both claimed two wickets while Rashid Khan and Qais Ahmad had one wicket each against their name.
In reply, Afghanistan never really got deep into the run-chase and except the likes of Najibullah Zadran and Azmatullah Omarzai, no other batter could provide resistance and fell tamely to the guile of Bangladesh bowlers.
The visitors folded for 94 runs in 17.4 overs eventually to hand a 61-run win to the hosts.
The second T20I is scheduled to be played at the same venue on March 5.