New Zealand made a winning start to their campaign in the 2017 Hong Kong Sixes with a comfortable win against Bangladesh in their first group match.
Bangladesh batted first but couldn’t go higher than 82/3 in their 5 overs with only Mahidul Ankon managing to score 32 off 9 deliveries. Afif Hossain (22 off 11) promised much but fell quickly as well. Rest of the batters struggled to score big against good accurate bowling by the Kiwi bowlers. Shanan Stewart only gave away 3 runs in his over and picked up a wicket.
New Zealand raced to 83/3 in 4 overs to win the match by 3 wickets. They were horribly placed at 2/2 but Brad Cachopa (31 off 6) & Shanan Stewart (29 n.o off 11) took all the steam out of Bangladeshi bowlers. Abul Hasan, though, managed to bowl an economical over for 1/9.
Next up was Hong Kong’s final group match against MCC. And the home team didn’t disappoint the fans by beating the much fancied MCC side by 4 wickets.
Hong Kong bowlers managed to put MCC down to 94/6 in their 5 overs. Samit Patel (27 off 8) & Rikki Clarke (25 off 6) managed to get some decent runs against their names. Ehsan Khan was the star of the show wrecking the MCC batting line-up by picking 3/5 in the final over.
Hong Kong made a strong start after losing Babar Hayat early but Nizakat Khan (34 off 7) & Jamie Atkinson (28 n.o off 9) took the team close before Ehsan Khan once again proved to be x-factor as he smashed 11 off 3 deliveries to take Hong Kong to 96/2 in 4.3 overs to win by 4 wickets.
