Guptill powers Kiwis to win over valiant Bangladesh

Martin Guptill scored a run-a-ball 91 in New Zealand’s run chase as they beat Bangladesh in the third ODI to complete the 3-0 whitewash.

New Zealand beat Bangladesh by three wickets at Christchurch despite a much improved performance from the visitors, who had been poor in the first two matches.

The home team won the toss and elected to bowl first, hoping to make some early inroads into the Bangladesh top order. They struck early, picking up Tamim Iqbal, when he had just eight runs under his belt followed by the wicket of Aftab Ahmed inside the Quick start overs as well. Imrul Kayes knew he had to play the leading role and he did just that. He put on a 58 run stand with Mohammad Ashraful for the third wicket before another 84 run partnership for the fourth with Shakib Al Hasan. They were in a very strong position at the 40 over mark with 198 runs on the board and six wickets still intact but they failed to capitalise, scoring just 43 runs in the Extreme Performance period while losing five wickets.  The late collapse put the teams back on an even keel on the Castrol Index worm.

New Zealand’s run chase started well with two 30 plus run partnerships and they were sitting nicely on 73, losing the only wicket of Brendon McCullum in the Quick start period. Peter Ingram and Ross Taylor went in quick succession but Daniel Vettori joined Martin Guptill in the middle and the duo put on 71 runs for the fourth wicket. Neil Broom and James Franklin played a couple of hand knocks towards the latter stages which helped New Zealand comfortably get over the line in the 45th over despite losing Jacob Oram cheaply at a very crucial stage.

Martin Guptill was the pick of the Kiwi players with 91 runs off as many balls and a Batting Momentum of 127.