BANGLADESH

Bangladesh skipper Mushfiqur Rahim's dramatic six off the penultimate ball secured the Tigers a tense three-wicket win over West Indies on Tuesday.

It ended a miserable sequence of results for Bangladesh, who had previously beaten Zimbabwe and Kenya in this type of cricket in the last four years.

Needing 133 runs for victory in the lone Twenty20 international, Bangladesh scored 135-7 in 19.5 overs. Rahim remained unbeaten on 41 off 26 balls.

He featured in a match-winning stand of 35 runs for the seventh wicket with Nasir Hossain, who contributed 18.

The Tigers got off to decent start before Tamim Iqbal (11) fell in the third over.

Although Imrul Kayes (22), Shakib Al Hasan (0), Mohammad Ashraful (24) and Alok Kapali (2) came and went, it only drove Rahim to play his shots with gusto.

The turning point of the match came in the 19th over bowled by right-arm pacer Carlos Brathwaite. He was asked to defend 22 runs, but ended up conceding 14 runs.

Even the dismissal of Nasir Hossain, with three balls to go, failed to stem the Rahim's momentum. His captain's knock earning the player of the match award.

Abdur Razzak managed to squeeze a single, leaving Rahim two balls to find a boundary off Ravi Rampaul.

And the Bangladesh captain's eyes lit up seeing a length ball which the pint-sized Rahim duly dispatched over the deep midwicket boundary sending Mirpur into raptures.

It was only Bangladesh's fourth overall success in 17 T20 matches and second against West Indies.

Earlier, after Rahim won his first toss as the full-time Bangladesh captain, and chose to bowl on a slow Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium wicket West Indies struggled to make 132-8.

Marlon Samuels once again showed his prowess with a 42-ball 58, studded with two fours and four sixes.

Apart from Samuels, opener Lendl Simmons made 23, Adrian Barath 15 and Denesh Ramdin 10 were only batsmen to contribute for the tourists who would have fancied their chances after winning both warm-up games going into the lone T20 match.

Shakib Al Hasan, Abdur Razzak and Shafiul Islam grabbed two wickets each.

Naeem Islam and Rubel Hossain took one wicket each.

Both sides will now turn their attention to the three-match one-day series that kicks off on Thursday. All matches will be day-nighters.