After that, the dream of the semi-final became stronger. They beat India who dominated the U-19 Asia Cup. That dream was further extended by another semi-final loss to Pakistan. A somewhat weaker opponent, the United Arab Emirates, made it to the final. Against whom there was a big win in the group stage. Bangladesh U-19 team beat Emirates by a huge margin and fulfilled that dream to become champions for the first time.
Bangladesh U-19 team defeated UAE by 195 runs in the U-19 Asia Cup final in Dubai on Sunday. Batting first, the young Tigers scored 282 runs for 8 wickets in the allotted 50 overs. In response, Emirates were bowled out for just 87 runs with 151 balls remaining.
The main hero of Bangladesh’s victory was opener Ashikur Rahman Shibli who was in great rhythm. Made a great century. Along with him, Chowdhury Mohammad Rizwan and Ariful Islam’s bats also caught fire. Both got fifty. Bangladesh threw a big target at the Emirates. Then the hosts could not even score a hundred runs with the bat of three pacers Maruf Mridha, Rahnat Daulla Barshan and Iqbal Hossain Imon.
India have won eight of the previous nine editions of the Asia Cup. They once shared the title with Pakistan. Afghanistan is the champion in the other. On the other hand, Bangladesh did not get any success despite playing eight times in this tournament. The highest achievement is the final game in 2019. They finished runners-up, losing to India by 5 runs in the service final.
The pacers of Bangladesh bowled brilliantly from the beginning of the day by throwing a target of 283 runs. At the beginning of this day, Arif roared. This pacer cut both Emirates openers. Then Barshan came on stage. He broke the middle order and took three consecutive wickets. As a result, half of the Emirates batsmen were out before 50 runs. After that Emon also picked up two wickets. Then the victory of Bangladesh is only a matter of time.
But Dhruv Parashar kept waiting for Bangladesh. Holding one edge, the batsman began to test the patience of the young Tigers. Although he remains unbeaten, the young Tigers continue to pick up wickets at the other end. Spinner Sheikh Parvez Jiban took 2 wickets and did the work of trimming the tail. Arif returned his third victim. Bangladesh left the field with a huge victory.
Only two UAE batsmen have reached double figures. Dhruv remained unbeaten on 25 off 40 balls. Besides, Akshat Roy scored 11 runs. For Bangladesh, Arif bowled 7 overs and took 3 wickets for 29 runs. He bowled 6 overs for 26 runs and took 3 catches. Apart from this, Emon and Jiban took 2 wickets each.
Earlier, Bangladesh lost the toss and batted first, beating opener Zeeshan Alam by 13 runs. However, Shibli, another opener, put up a great resistance with Chowdhury Mohammad Rizwan on the second wicket. These two batsmen made a great partnership of 125 runs. After the return of Rizwan, Shibli made another great partnership of 86 runs with Ariful Islam. Due to which Bangladesh has got a large collection base.
Shibli, who came in the opening, survived almost till the end. The opener got out one ball before the end of the innings and returned to the dressing room. 129 runs came from his bat. He hit 1 six with 12 fours off 149 balls. Earlier, the wicketkeeper-batsman scored an unbeaten century against Sri Lanka in the group stage. He also scored two half-centuries. He finished this season with 378 runs in 5 matches. He has no one else. No other batsman has scored 25 runs so far.
Shibli, who scored a 78-ball half-century, reached three figures in 129 balls. Rizwan scored 60 runs off 71 balls with 4 fours and 1 six. An aggressive innings of 50 runs from 40 balls came from the bat of Ariful. In the end, captain Mahfuzur Rahman Ravi played a cameo of 21 runs off 11 balls. Ayman Ahmed took 4 wickets for 52 runs for Emirates. He hunted all three in the last over of Bangladesh’s innings. Omid Rehman got 2 wickets for 41 runs.
