Shahriar ton puts Bermuda in their place

Bangladesh 206 for 2 (Shahriar 104*, Saqibul 42*) beat Bermuda 205 for 8 (Cann 33, Rafique 2-38) by eight wickets
Scorecard

Shahriar Nafees goes down in one knee to sweep during his century © Eddie Norfolk

Bangladesh demonstrated that a significant gulf in class exists between them and the genuine minnows of the World Cup, as they cruised to an eight-wicket victory over Bermuda at St John's. The main man of their performance was the opener, Shahriar Nafees, who recorded the fourth ODI hundred of his 40-match career, an unbeaten 104 from 112 balls that secured victory with more than 12 overs to spare.

Bermuda's preparations for this Tri-Series tournament suffered a setback last week when they slipped to defeat against lowly Antigua & Barbuda in a warm-up game, but this time they did at least make a fist of their batting performance, winning the toss and posting a total of 205 for 8, thanks to solid contributions all down the order but particularly from the tail, as they recovered from a shaky 83 for 5.

Lionel Cann top-scored with 33 from No. 7, while three other batsmen also exceeded 30, among them Saleem Mukuddem, whose 32 came to an end when he was run-out by a combination of Mohammad Rafique and the wicketkeeper, Mushfiqur Rahim.

Bangladesh's bowlers were not significantly stretched although Tapash Baisya came in for a bit of tap with the new ball, conceding his runs at 5.3 an over. The pick of the bowlers, as so often, was Rafique, whose 10 overs went for 38 runs, and resulted in the wickets of David Hemp and the captain, Irvine Romaine, for a duck.

In reply, Bangladesh lost their hard-hitting young opener, Tamin Iqbal, for 11 early on, but were never in danger of an upset, as Shahriar added 58 for the second wicket with Aftab Ahmed (40) and an unbroken 134 with Saqibul Hasan.

Bermuda now face Canada, who warmed up with a hard-earned five-wicket victory over Antigua, in the second match on Monday.