Source: Radio New Zealand
Bevon Jacobs of the Black Caps. © Photosport Ltd 2026 www.photosport.nz
The Black Caps beat Bangladesh by six wickets in a rain-affected third and final T20 in Dhaka.
The series finished tied 1-1 after Bangladesh won the first match and the second game was washed out.
Batting first, Bangladesh’s innings was interrupted by wet weather for nearly two hours, with the match reduced to 15 overs a side.
The hosts eventually posted 102 runs, with Towhid Hridoy top-scoring with 33.
Nathan Smith and Ben Sears took two wickets each with Josh Clarkson snaring three, and Ish Sodhi and Jayden Lennox bagging one each.
Clarkson ended with figures of 3 for 9, while Smith helped New Zealand make a strong start with two wickets off consecutive deliveries in the fifth over.
Nick Kelly. © Photosport Ltd 2026 www.photosport.nz
New Zealand Captain Nick Kelly was pleased with the way they bounced back from their opening match defeat.
“We spoke quite a bit about the last game, the areas we got wrong or maybe didn’t quite hit the mark on,” Kelly said.
“I think a big part of that was our death bowling and I thought Josh was exceptional there. His plans were very clear and he executed beautifully.”
New Zealand then chased down the victory target with 20 balls to spare on the back of a half century to Bevon Jacobs, who scored an unbeaten 62 off 31 balls, including five fours and three sixes.
Jacobs helped the tourists recover from 33 for 4, combining with Dean Foxcroft in an unbeaten stand of 71. Opener Tim Robinson contributed 23 runs at the top of the order.
“Bev, he’s a very, very clean ball striker,” Kelly said.
“We see him in the Nets training very hard and he hits the ball a long way. So it was cool for him to get himself in and then cool to see a bit of power at the end there.”
Kelly said the rain break wouldn’t have helped Bangladesh.
“We spoke about it at the toss. Before the rain came, we were going to have a bat first. But then with a bit of weather, we were like, we’ll probably look to bowl just because it is a little bit nigglier. And that’s how it played out.
“It’s always tough when you come off and then you lose five overs because you probably would have gone a little bit harder had you known it had been a 15-over game. So that was sort of the reasoning behind what we did at the toss. And lucky for us that’s sort of worked in our favour.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand