Australia beat Bangladesh

Australia beat Bangladesh by six wickets ahead of the triangular series final against England on Saturday.Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, found his form in the nick of time today to help his team avoid further embarrassment against Bangladesh and put them in good heart for this weekend’s NatWest Series final against England.

Ponting’s first 50 in this triangular tournament set his side on course for a six-wicket win at Canterbury - and probably settled his own nerves too after a sequence of only 62 runs in four previous limited-overs international innings this summer.

On a day that featured more troubled times for Matthew Hayden, the Australia opener, as well as half-centuries for Bangladesh’s Shahriar Nafees (75) and Khaled Mashud (71no), Michael Clarke’s unbeaten 80 and Ponting’s 66 were enough to ensure the world champions got past a target of 250 for eight - sparing any more blushes following their shock defeat against the same opponents at Cardiff.

Hayden - set to escape official censure over allegations that he swore at a child in a guard of honour at Edgbaston on Tuesday - made a solitary run before he was caught behind fencing at Mashrafe Mortaza.

The Queensland player, who gave the young flag-wavers a conspicuously wide berth when Australia ran out to field, also dropped a routine slip catch in a Bangladesh innings that began with an alarming stutter but was resuscitated by Nafees and Mashud.

The reply was in immediate trouble thanks to Hayden’s early departure and hit two more snags when Adam Gilchrist gave himself out despite appearing to miss an attempted drive that curiously deviated out of the footholds to slip off Tapash Baisya. Khaled Mahmud then got one to nip away and had Damien Martyn neatly caught at the wicket.

Ponting, batting at three, made a fidgety start and had more than one lbw scrape before gradually finding his touch in a hard-working 95-ball innings featuring just five fours and ending with a disappointing aerial pull to deep midwicket off Mortaza.

Ponting had therefore left some work still to be done. But Clarke, with whom the captain shared an 85-run stand, buckled down for an 80-ball 50 and found an expert ‘finisher’ in Andrew Symonds who marked a return to his home ground with a match-clinching contribution towards an unbroken alliance of 86.

Nafees, the Bangladesh opener, had earlier resisted the over-ambitious shot selection favoured by most of his colleagues to provide some much-needed substance in his maiden half-century for a team put in first on a cloudy day.

The left-hander combined with Habibul Bashar and then more significantly Mashud, whose career-best batting helped to ensure a testing total was salvaged from the wreckage of 19 for three after two of the first three in the Bangladesh order had gone for ducks.

Jason Gillespie made the first incision with a length ball that took the outside edge, with Javed Omar squared up on the back foot.

Hayden’s earlier drop at slip therefore cost nothing, and Brett Lee put himself in the wickets column anyway when Tushar Imran paid for aiming across the line to be bowled first ball.

Mohammad Ashraful’s response to the usual crisis was a four-ball microcosm of his gung-ho summer, replete with a memorable pull for six from a near 90mph Lee delivery barely short of a length and then the demolition of his stumps when he missed a fast and low full toss next up.

Nafees is the only top-order batsman who has convinced for Bangladesh and he impressed again as a solid bet for the future.

Just the occasional faulty waft outside off-stump betrayed him in a 116-ball stay that brought six boundaries, and he was not tempted into anything foolish even as Habibul was dominating with a cameo 30 which included four fours in one Lee over.

Earlier, Australia reduced Bangladesh to 75 for five inside 17 overs. But they failed to polish off the tail as Bangladesh rallied to 250 for eight in 50 overs.

Australia v/s Bangladesh
Canterbury
The NatWest Series

Australia beat Bangladesh by 6 wkts.

Australia innings

Batsman Runs Balls 4s 6s
AC Gilchrist c Khaled Mahmud b Tapash Baisya 45 36 7 1
ML Hayden c Khaled Mashud b Mashrafe Mortaza 1 4 - -
RT Ponting c Tushar Imran b Mashrafe Mortaza 66 95 5 -
DR Martyn c Khaled Mashud b Khaled Mahmud 9 16 1 -
MJ Clarke not out 80 104 5 1
A Symonds not out 42 37 4 1
Extras 0b 3lb 5w 3nb 11
TOTAL: 4 wkts , 48.1 overs 254

Fall of wickets: 1-15 (15 Hayden, 9 mins), 2-63 (48 Gilchrist, 35 mins), 3-83 (20 Martyn, 18 mins), 4-168 (85 Ponting, 72 mins)

To bat: M E K Hussey, S R Watson, B Lee, J N Gillespie, M S Kasprowicz

Bowler O M R W
Mashrafe Mortaza 9 0 44 2
Tapash Baisya 9 0 57 1
Khaled Mahmud 10 0 54 1
Aftab Ahmed 10 0 48 0
Mohammad Rafique 10 0 44 0
Mohammad Ashraful 0.1 0 4 0

Bangladesh innings

Batsman Runs Balls 4s 6s
Javed Omar c Gilchrist b Gillespie 0 10 - -
Shahriar Nafees c Gilchrist b Watson 75 116 6 -
Tushar Imran b Lee 0 1 - -
Mohammad Ashraful b Lee 7 4 - 1
Habibul Bashar c Gilchrist b Watson 30 24 5 -
Aftab Ahmed c Gilchrist b Kasprowicz 7 11 1 -
Khaled Mashud not out 71 105 4 -
Mohammad Rafique c Gilchrist b Watson 15 13 1 1
Khaled Mahmud c Ponting b Gillespie 22 22 1 -
Extras 0b 9lb 8w 6nb 23
TOTAL: 8 wkts , 50 overs
(overs completed) 250
Fall of wickets: 1-8 (8 Javed Omar, 18 mins), 2-9 (1 Tushar Imran, 2 mins), 3-19 (10 Mohammad Ashraful, 6 mins), 4-57 (38 Habibul Bashar, 28 mins), 5-75 (18 Aftab Ahmed, 14 mins), 6-169 (94 Shahriar Nafees, 81 mins), 7-193 (24 Mohammad Rafique, 20 mins), 8-250 (57 Khaled Mahmud, 34 mins)
Did not bat: Mashrafe Mortaza, Tapash Baisya
Bowler O M R W
B Lee 10 0 62 2
J N Gillespie 9 0 49 2
S R Watson 10 0 43 3
M S Kasprowicz 9 0 46 1
A Symonds 10 0 36 0
M J Clarke 2 1 5 0

Australia won the toss and decided to field

Umpires: Aleem Dar, J W Lloyds

Australia:
A C Gilchrist (wkt) , M L Hayden , R T Ponting (capt) , D R Martyn , A Symonds , M E K Hussey , M J Clarke , S R Watson , B Lee , J N Gillespie , M S Kasprowicz

Bangladesh:
Javed Omar , Shahriar Nafees , Tushar Imran , Mohammad Ashraful , Habibul Bashar (capt) , Aftab Ahmed , Khaled Mashud (wkt) , Mohammad Rafique , Mashrafe Mortaza , Tapash Baisya , Khaled Mahmud.