Bangladesh crush Uganda

Bangladesh 255 (49.4 overs, Mushfiqur Rahim 64); Uganda 84 (33.4 overs). Bangladesh won by 171 runs.

Bangladesh maintained their 100 percent record heading into Saturday's Super League quarter-finals with a comprehensive 171-run win over Uganda.

Batting first the Tigers made 255 with captain Mushfiqur Rahim top-scoring with 64 before dismantling the African side's batting for just 84 in 33.4 overs.

The win confirms Bangladesh as the winners of Group A and they will play either England or Zimbabwe in the Super League quarter-finals on Saturday.

Uganda, meanwhile, will face Nepal in the Plate Championship quarter-final next Tuesday.

Bangladesh's win was founded on a fluent innings from Rahim and an excellent all-round performance from Ishraq Sonnet.

Rahim took advantage of a let-off when he was bowled off a Ronald Semanda no-ball on 11 to stroke six fours in an 80-ball innings that took his side forward after they had slipped to 81-4.

That was partly the result of some good swing bowling from the Ugandans and partly the result of some careless batting from the Bangladesh top-order as coach Allister de Winter admitted afterwards.

"We were not entirely happy with that first hour or so," he said.

"We wanted to respect the opposition but perhaps we did not early on and it put pressure on our middle order.

"The bottom half of our order has saved us quite often so far but we do not want to have to rely on that in the Super League so we have some work to do," he added.

Sonnet was part of that lower order and his contribution, blasting 37 from just 25 balls with three fours and a six, gave the innings late impetus and took the final total well beyond Uganda's reach.

Sonnet then took the new ball and, in his first match of the tournament, picked up 3-26.

"His bowling was a bit rusty but his batting gives us real value down the order," said de Winter.

"His effort today will make our selection for the Super League quite hard, although that is a nice problem to have," he added.

Semanda finished as Uganda's most successful bowler with 4-43 while opening bowlers Danniel Ruyange (1-54) and Patrick Ochan (2-61) also enjoyed success although both were expensive.

Uganda quickly slipped into trouble when they batted but their one ray of light was opener Arthur Kyobe who made a defiant 31.

While all the other players fell around him, Kyobe held firm for almost two and a half hours until he was the last man out, brilliantly caught and bowled by Mehrab Hossain (2-7).

"That (innings) was an exceptional effort," said coach Sam Walusimbi.

"He is one of our best batsmen but has had a bit of a lean period. He dropped down the order because of that and did not play in the qualifiers but we have been having problems at the top and he asked to open today to try and solve that."

Bangladesh's other wicket-takers were Nabil Samad Chowdhury (2-10) and Rezaul Islam (2-10), the latter another player making his first appearance of the tournament.

Apart from Kyobe, no other Uganda batsman made it to double figures and extras were top-score with 32.

De Winter said he did not mind whether Bangladesh played England or Zimbabwe in the Super League quarter-finals.

"Whoever it is we come up against, it will be a good contest," he said.

"England were competitive against us last year even though they did not win a game and our (warm-up) match against Zimbabwe the other day was close although we were poor in the field."

The strength of all three sides appears to lie in the slow bowling department and as de Winter added: "It will be whoever copes best against spin that may well determine the match."