Shakib Al Hasan admitted his match-winning 124 in Bangladesh’s Cricket World Cup victory over the West Indies ranked as one of the best moments of his career.
Shakib’s majestic display on Monday paved the way for Bangladesh to record the second-highest run chase in World Cup history as they reached 322-3 at Taunton, England.
Hitting 16 fours in his unbeaten 99-ball innings, Shakib was well supported by Liton Das, who scored 94 from 69 balls in his first World Cup appearance.
Photo: AFP
The pair’s unbroken stand of 189 was the second-highest for the fourth wicket in World Cup history.
It was a memorable day for Shakib, who rated both his performance and his team’s among the greatest he has experienced.
“It’s obviously one of the best, because the way we chased that run, the way I paced the innings, I was never in a rush. I didn’t have to play too many shots from a good ball,” Shakib told reporters. “I had to be patient and I was patient enough to put the bad ball away. I think every time I did that quite well and it’s one of the key things in my batting in this chase.”
Only Ireland’s 329-7 against England in 2011 stands as a bigger World Cup run chase, but Shakib insisted Bangladesh never doubted they could overhaul the West Indies’ total of 321-8.
In the end they reached the target with 8.3 overs to spare thanks to Shakib and Das.
“At the end of the first innings in the dressing room no one felt that this was tough. Everyone was comfortable and was chilling,” he said. “It gave a lot of confidence in the dressing room and belief that we could chase that run. Once we started batting, I think the way the openers started their innings, everyone in the dressing room felt good and comfortable and relaxed. That helped us a lot. So at no point of time we had to panic.”
Shakib has now scored two centuries at the World Cup after hitting 121 against England.
In the course of the West Indies match he became just the second player to score 6,000 career one-day international runs for the Tigers.
His heroics kept Bangladesh in with a chance of making the semi-finals and Shakib hopes there are more golden moments to come.
“I don’t know if this is the best I have been batting or not, but so far it’s going well and, fingers crossed, hope it continues,” he said.
West Indies captain Jason Holder said his side now face a tough task to reach the semi-finals.
“It’s looking tough at this present moment, but it’s not impossible. We have to play every game here now as a final,” Holder said. “We’ve got to win every game left to give ourselves a really good chance.”
New Zealand and India, both in fine form, are the West Indies’ next two opponents and they must beat both to remain in contention.
“If we want to go through into the semi-finals we’ve got to beat the best teams,” Holder said. “We’ve got to back ourselves and be more clinical with the ball. A few top-edges didn’t go our way, but we didn’t help ourselves as well. We’ve also got to score more runs because we haven’t got a batsman with a hundred yet. I thought with the pitch dimensions we could have got 365, 375, but we were well short, 40 or 50 runs.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite