Mustafizur toys with Williamson

Something to remember me by

Debutants would want to make good first impressions on their captains. Henry Nicholls, though, took it a little too far. Playing his first T20I, looking for his second boundary, he strode confidently down the track and smacked one at Kane Williamson at the non-striker's end. The magic spray was needed, some ointment and a bandage wrapped around the left elbow for good measure. If Nicholls was fretting about his captain's mobility though, Williamson allayed those fears by extending that left elbow up to the sky while hitting a pristine cover drive in the fifth over.

Williamson spins one off the bat

In the ninth over, Williamson managed to blast Mustafizur Rahman over the in-field to the cover boundary. Tamim Iqbal was running in from wide long-off but just when the ball pitched on the practice wickets, it showed that every playing surface at Eden Gardens has spin and bounce. The ball turned sharply away from Tamim, and went for four.

The 1-2-3

But the next three balls belonged to Mustafizur, who basically played with Williamson despite the New Zealand captain being quite settled at the crease. In the three-ball combination that led to Williamson's dismissal, Mustafizur first beat him with a slower off-cutter that fizzed past Williamson's attempt to hit the ball straight. Next, Mustafizur bowled a fast cutter that zoomed past a slanted bat that tried to squeeze it past point. Finally, Mustafizur aimed at the stumps despite Williamson moving towards the off side. It was another slower ball which struck the off stump.

The help

Mustafizur did not need much help with his five wickets (four batsmen were bowled) but for his fourth, Shuvagata Hom helped him out with a stunning take. He ran back at least 10 yards from mid-on after Grant Elliott skied another slower ball, before diving full-length and completing the catch. It was great judgment from Shuvagata, who saw Mustafizur as the first to congratulate him.

The anti-climax

Having bowled Mitchell Santner and Nathan McCullum off consecutive deliveries in the last over, Mustafizur faced yet another hat-trick opportunity. But Mitchell McClenaghan, who walked in to huge cheers building up for the hat-trick ball, ensured that there was no fairytale ending. McClenaghan slammed that delivery for a huge six over long-on - not a bad way to hit your first six in T20Is.

The continuing bad luck

It seemed a perfectly mild seam up delivery from Grant Elliot to Mushfiqur Rahim in the 11th over. But the ball swerved away just enough to beat the batsman's outside edge and strike the off-stump. Only the wicketkeeper Luke Ronchi had some idea of what had happened as Elliott looked more dumbfounded than Mushfiqur. Walking back to the dugout, Mushfiqur re-enacted the delivery and shook his head. After his troubles in Bangalore, he bagged a duck in Kolkata.