Ireland 154/5 (20/20 ov)
Oman 157/8 (19.4/20 ov)
Oman won by 2 wickets (with 2 balls remaining)
Oman pulled off a stunning upset against a side that is known for upsetting stronger sides in global tournaments, shocking Ireland with a two-wicket win with two balls to spare in Dharamsala. Chasing 155 on a slow track, Oman's fortunes swung from one extreme to the other: the openers gave them a strong start but the middle order wobbled, before an Aamer Ali cameo turned around again. They eventually sealed a historic win by taking 15 runs off a frenetic final over from Max Sorenson, who lost his lengths during a spate of full tosses that left Ireland in anguish.
Oman needed 14 off the last over with three wickets in hand. The first ball from Sorenson was a shoulder-high full toss and Aamer managed to steer it to the fine-leg boundary. Nine needed off five but Aamer could only take a bye off the free-hit - a yorker that hit the stumps. Another full toss followed - a wide one - and Ajay Lalcheta managed to edge a swipe past the keeper to the third-man boundary. The game was almost Oman's now, but Sorensen had Aamer nicking to the wicketkeeper. And then, with three needed off two balls, Sorensen bowled another high full toss that beat both batsman and keeper and raced to the boundary to spark off joyous celebrations in the Oman camp.
At 95 for 5, with Oman needing 61 off 30 balls, those celebrations seemed improbable before Aamer cut loose. He dispatched Sorensen over the midwicket boundary and used clever shots against the experienced Tim Murtagh in the 17th over to bring the equation down to 23 from 18. Murtagh helped Oman's cause with a no-ball and two wides in the over and Aamer then finished it with three consecutive fours to tilt the balance. Kevin O'Brien kept Ireland alive by conceding only five runs in the 18th, and Oman lost two more wickets in the 19th before that dramatic finish.
Oman's openers Zeeshan Maqsood and Khawar Ali had put on a stand of 69 in 8.3 overs that kept the required run rate under eight per over. Maqsood peppered the leg side with one cracking shot after another and cashed in on loose deliveries with several swipes. He spanked three fours off Boyd Rankin in the third over and Khawar also switched gears after facing several dot balls initially. Khawar attacked O'Brien with a consecutive four and six before he was bowled and O'Brien jolted Oman further with the wicket of Maqsood in his next over.
William Porterfield then switched between Paul Stirling, Sorensen and Andy McBrine who stifled Oman with 23 boundary-less balls. McBrine made things worse for Oman by collecting two wickets in four balls in the 14th over, reducing them to 90 for 5, but that brought out Aamer, who proved too dangerous for Ireland.
Having opted to bat though dew was going to come into play later on, Ireland's first few overs were filled with crunchy drives from Stirling after left-arm spinner Ajay Lalcheta started with a maiden. Stirling attacked Bilal Khan and took the score to 46 for 0 in the Powerplay as his partner Porterfield raced from 4 off 11 to 14 off 17 before the field could be spread out.
Ireland were left stunned when Maqsood took a spectacular one-handed catch at extra cover, intercepting a Stirling drive and ending his innings. Ireland needed momentum to build on but could not find any because Oman brought on one spinner after another. No. 3 Gary Wilson started accelerating with two fours in the 10th over but when Porterfield tried to do the same by stepping out, he was stumped off Khawar for 29. The Ireland batsmen picked a boundary almost every over after that but the sluggish pitch made it tough to find them more often, even off full tosses.
Wilson worked hard for an innings of 38 that ended when his stumps were splattered by Munis Ansari, who also dismissed Niall O'Brien in the same over. Ansari had leaked 15 in his first over but he bowled the remaining three to not allow Ireland to get too far. He bowled yorkers, slower ones, and targeted the stumps to concede 22 runs off his last 18 balls. It was only in his last over, which leaked 12, that McBrine collected two fours to help Ireland past 150.
Bangladesh 153/7
Netherlands 145/7 (20/20 ov)
Bangladesh won by 8 runs
Taskin Ahmed bowled a high-quality last over, giving away eight runs when Netherlands required 17 to win, to help Bangladesh start their World T20 campaign with an eight-run win in Dharamsala. The game had swung in nearly every over as neither team could take a hold of the contest.
Mudassar Bukhari and Pieter Seelaar kept Netherlands in the hunt with a 16-run penultimate over, after Tom Cooper was dismissed off the first ball. Bukhari was run-out in the last over, and neither Seelaar nor Logan van Beek could find the boundaries.
Ultimately, Tamim Iqbal's unbeaten 83, as the rest of the Bangladesh batting line-up struggled, Mashrafe Mortaza's boundary-less last three overs and Taskin's accurate last over combined for Bangladesh's win.
The game was in Netherlands' grasp when they needed 54 runs in the last five overs with seven wickets in hand. Captain Peter Borren started off the assault with a one-handed sweep through midwicket for four. Subsequently, he was dropped in the same region by Nasir Hossain before the same fielder caught him at the end of the over.
In the next over, Mortaza, who conceded one four in his spell, was unlucky not to have Cooper's wicket after the ball struck the off stump but the bails didn't budge. Van der Merwe was removed later in the over though, the thin edge carrying to the Mushfiqur Rahim.
Earlier, Al-Amin Hossain had removed Wesley Barresi in the fifth over, but his opening partner Stephan Myburgh and Ben Cooper kept the runs flowing. Nasir, then, provided Bangladesh with the breakthrough by having Myburgh bowled in the ninth over for a run-a-ball 29. Borren got into his work immediately, having reverse-swept Nasir for two boundaries in the same over. The next 26 balls yielded no boundaries off the bat.
In the first innings, the pace pair of Timm van der Gugten and Paul van Meekeren combined to take five wickets for 38 runs in eight overs. Van der Gugten's double-strike in the 15th over stalled Bangladesh's late charge, and van Meekeren made up for his dropped catch in the first over with figures of 2 for 17.
Tamim, who hit his first T20I fifty since December 2012, was the only batsman to thwart the bowling. His 58-ball 83, which was Bangladesh's third highest T20 score, included six fours and three sixes.
Tamim, while assessing conditions in the early part of his innings, took plenty of singles before lacing a beautiful cut off van Meekeren in the sixth over. His first six was a mis-hit that just cleared long-off but he showed his form with his next boundary - a late dab past short third man.
After Shakib Al Hasan's wicket, Tamim changed gears and hit van der Merwe for a straight six in the 13th over but survived a stumping chance off the following delivery. He smashed Logan van Beek for two fours in the next over but struggled to farm the strike as wickets fell frequently around him. He hit only one more four and a flat six, which came in the last over. The rest of the batsmen's struggles showed just how important Tamim's knock was.
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