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Last tie with Zimbabwe today

Once again Kenya showed who are the better, crushing over-rated Bangladesh at their own den yesterday.

The humbled hosts were thrown out of the Meril International one-day tournament in the most humiliating fashion when Kenya handed them a 73-run defeat at the Bangabandhu National Stadium last night.

With the comfortable victory, their second against Bangladesh in this two-tier tri-nation meet, Kenya set up a final clash against Zimbabwe, billed for March 27 at the same venue. On the other hand, Bangladesh will take the field today against Zimbabwe in the last league match of the tourney.

But, their track record suggests Bangladesh can expect only to be battered in the day-night affair, which holds only an academic interest. Favourites Zimbabwe have already reached the final with three consecutive wins against the two lowly-rated teams.

Kennedy Otieno vindicated his captain's decision to bat first with a cracking 120, his second one-day century, to help Kenya recover from a shaky start to a fighting 231.

His maiden hundred, a swashbuckling 144, also came against Bangladesh in the President's Cup in Nairobi two years back.

The sturdy opener played the sheet-anchor role to guide his side to safety after Kenya lost their two in-form batsman Steve Tikolo and Ravindu Shah in quick succession. Taking the toothless and at times erratic Bangladesh bowlers to the sword, the wicketkeeper-batsman raced to the magical three-figure mark with the help half a dozen sixes and as many fours.

Dropped while on 41 by left-arm spinner Mohammed Rafique, the experienced right-hander made the most of the decisive let-off when he reached his hundred in style, smashing slow left-armer Enamul Hoque for a huge sixer over square-leg.

Otieno put on 70 runs with vice-captain Maurice Odumbe, who made a defiant 25 off 41 balls. But the most enterprising part in the Kenyan innings came when Gupta joined Otieno to feature in 78 runs for the fifth wicket.

Otieno, who hammered eight fours in his marathon 137-ball knock, was eventually out in the 46th over, leaving Kenya comfortably placed at 211 for seven. He was caught at short-fine leg, mistiming an intended pull against Hasibul Hossain, the tall right-arm seamer, who eventually finished with career-best four for 54 in 10 overs.

Bangladesh, in their chase, started miserably as their consistently inconsistent top-order quickly followed one after another to the dressing room. Opener Shahriar Hossain returned for a first ball duck, lazily playing the first ball of the innings into the waiting hands of right-arm seamer Tony Suji.

Shahriar's partner Mehrab hung in the middle for a while before he fell in the trap set by the Kenyan skipper by skying straight to the fielder placed at deep square leg.

Skipper Aminul Islam, dubbed as a technically correct batsman, put batting basics to shame when he shuffled on the back-foot to a rank good-length delivery from Thomas Odoyo and was caught plumb in front after scoring only 10.

With Bangladesh reeling at three for 56, former national captain Akram Khan stood as the lone hope for the expectant crowd. The portly-right hander, coming into bat at number three, threw caution to the wind when he worked his way to his career-best 65 of 105 deliveries inclusive of five hits across the rope.

But local hopes were truly over once Akram was brilliantly caught at cover by Mohammed Shiekh, the left-arm spinner who then went on to mop up the fragile tail to finish with four for 36 in his 10 niggling overs.

Otieno's terrific hundred earned him the man-of-the-match award and a purse of US 500 dollars.

Today's match will also be telecast Live and Bangladesh Betar will have ball-to-ball commentary.