'I said I will go back to my country with a win' - Madziva

You could see the excitement in his big eyes. Neville Madziva was pumped up - and rightly so - after taking 18 runs off the final over to seal a much-needed Zimbabwe victory, against Bangladesh, and he animatedly expressed how that felt.

"Whoa! Whoa!" he said, and took a deep breath, when asked whether he could put in words how he felt after his penultimate-ball six clinched a three-wicket win. "Before the game, as a team we wanted to win this game. Right from the hotel to warm-ups, our first innings bowling… everyone was pumped up for a win. I am still chuffed that we won."

With Malcolm Waller, Zimbabwe's highest scorer of the innings and the best batsmen from the previous game, caught at long-on off the first ball of the final over, you would not have been blamed had you thought things would go differently. But Madziva relished the sight of spinner Nasir Hossain, and what followed next was spectacular: six over cover, two to long-off, four over backward point and then a mighty high hit over long-on. The ball hadn't dropped beyond the advertising board before Madziva started to jump in celebration.

"When I saw Nasir bowling, I told myself to get on strike. I had that self-belief that we will win this game," Madziva said. "I enjoy facing spinners more. I said to myself, this is it. I will go back to my country with a win.

Madziva believed the chase first changed course in the 19th over, when he was caught behind off Mustafizur Rahman but the TV umpire declared a no-ball after watching five replays. "I think that's where we won this match. I don't have much to say about it. It happened, we won."

He admitted that had Mustafizur bowled the final over, things might have been different, as he had trouble reading him. "If you see the 19th over, when I was facing Mustafizur, I was struggling to read his slower balls. I had that belief in me against all the other bowlers though."

His captain Elton Chigumbura wasn't as bubbly, perhaps weighed down by the other losses on the tour to Bangladesh. But he was happy nonetheless, especially at the way they finished off the game. "We were looking for this win when we came here. It is a good feeling to finally win again in Bangladesh. We did well in all departments. The guys worked hard."

Chigumbura said he had asked Madziva to target the slow bowlers. "We thought maybe Nasir will bowl the second-last over. Before he [Madziva] went in, I told him that one spinner will bowl in the last three overs. We had to take as many as we could from that spinner."

Chigumbura had praise for his bowlers too, for keeping Bangladesh to 135 for 9. "The good thing today was that we kept getting wickets. I think the way we bowled in the last three overs, it was a bit easier. We didn't go for many and this made a big difference as well.

"To draw a series is a big positive for Zimbabwe. It was disappointing to lose the ODI series. This win will give us confidence and hopefully we can carry on from here."