After Mehidy Hasan Miraz finished with his career best bowling Najmul Hossain Shanto hit a match winning knock that guided Bangladesh to clinch a historic T20I series win against the world champion England as they secured a four-wicket win over the visitors with one match to spare at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Sunday.
Miraz scalped 4-12 that fueled the Tigers to bowled out the visitors to a paltry 11, then Shanto made a 47-ball 46 to reach the Tigers to the target 120-6 with seven balls to spare.
Bangladesh’s next highest 16-ball 20 came from Miraz’s bat.
Apart from Miraz Shakib, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed and Hasan Mahmud took one wicket each.
In search for maiden T20I series win against the world champions Bangladesh also found life tough on the slow and low tract of Mirpur as they lost their opening pair for 27 inside the powerplay that pushed them back foot the very first set.
Liton Das and Rony Talukdar fell to Sam Curran and Jofra Archer for nine runs each respectively.
In the third wicket stand Shanto and Towhid Hridoy shared a 31-ball 29 run to curb the early damage and also to rebuild the innings.
However, with the latter excluding on 17 off 18 balls, the home side once again embraced the pressure as that limited them to 56-3.
Then Shanto along with Miraz formed a quick 32-ball 41 to give the hosts the essence of their desired victory before the latter gave a catch to Adil Rashid for 20 off 16 balls in 15.4 overs.
However, with Shakib falling on Moeen Ali in the next over for a naught and Jofra Archer chopping Afif Hossain stumps for 2 in the following over that mounted a huge pressure as the Tigers were just thirteen runs away from the victory but were in fear lacking a recognized batsman in the tail.
However, Shanto continued single handedly with Tasin Ahmed until the last delivery to secure the historic series win over the mighty England.
Jofra was the peak of the English bowlers picking up 3-13 while Moeen Ali and Rehan Ahmed claimed one wicket each.
Earlier, Bangladesh made the visitors huffing and puffing from the very beginning on the low and slow track of the SBNCS electing to bowl first.
Ben Duckett scored the highest with a run-a-ball 28 while Phil Salt made 25 off 19.
Shakib Al Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud and Mustafizur Rahman each complemented Mehidy with a wicket apiece.
Taskin dismissed opener Dawid Malan for five but Salt and Moeen Ali showed positive intent to put on 34 runs for the second wicket.
However, the visitors then lost the wickets of Salt, skipper Jos Buttler (four) and Ali (15) in consecutive overs to unsettle them.
Mehidy then struck twice in one over to dismiss Sam Curran (12) and Chris Woakes (0) to deny England a late recovery.
