Kasteni guides Zimbabwe home

Zimbabwe A 182 for 4 (Kasteni 73) beat Bangladesh A 179 (Sharif 52*, Rinke 3-15, Strydom 3-23) by six wickets
Scorecard

Zimbabwe A finally registered a victory in their one-day series against Bangladesh A, at Kwekwe, through the impressive efforts of their bowlers and a composed 73 by Friday Kasteni. Three wickets apiece for Pete Rinke and Greg Strydom restricted the Bangladesh batting and Zimbabwe had few problems knocking off the runs despite their early troubles in the series.

Bangladesh were on the backfoot from the start as Nafees Iqbal fell first ball and although the top order played with their customary freedom, wickets also went at regular intervals. They were seven down by the start of the 22nd over - with Rinke taking three in an impressive eight-over spell - and the remaining batsmen were left to rescue what they could.

Tushar Imran, the captain, played a solid hand but it was Mohammad Sharif, the No.9, who really pushed the total upwards towards respectability. The pair added 61 for the eighth wicket and when Imran went Sharif, who has eight ODI caps, reached his first half-century at any one-day level.

Still, though, their efforts couldn't gloss over the earlier collapse and Zimbabwe knew all they had to do was bat their overs and started well as Rinke played positively. Kasteni then formed the other major stand of 79 with Hamilton Masakadza, who managed to hold in his usual boundary hitting. Their partnership took Zimbabwe most of the way and the formalities were completed with 19 balls to spare