Liton, bowlers hand Tigers big T20I series win

It was business as usual as Bangladesh romped home to a big victory by nine wickets over Zimbabwe to win the twenty20 international (T20I) series 2-0 at Mirpur on Wednesday.

Liton Das was the star of the show with the bat scoring 60* but the real work was done by the bowlers in the first innings as they restricted Zimbabwe to just 119-7.

The final blows were hit by another in-form batsman, Soumya Sarkar, who hit two big sixes in his innings of 20 off 16. 

This was Bangladesh's first T20I series win at home against Zimbabwe since 2006. 

The Bangladesh openers, Liton Das and Naim Sheikh got the innings off to a solid start.

Knowing that the asking rate was a touch below six for the innings, they took their time and settled in, playing proper cricketing shots and only punishing the bad balls. 

While Liton started to accelerate after the powerplay overs, Naim was the more subdued partner.

The partnership crossed fifty in the eighth over as a big victory seemed ominous. 

But when Naim tried to up the ante, he ended up skewing a catch to deep square-leg Tinashe Kamunhukamwe.

The partnership was broken with the score at 77 with Naim gone for 33 off 34 balls.

Liton kept up his imperious form and continued to play some lovely shots as he brought up his fifty in the 12th over.

It was Liton's second consecutive fifty in as many T20Is and he carried on his excellent form from the ODIs where he scored 311 runs and had two big centuries. 

Soumya Sarkar was the next man in but Liton continued on his merry way, taking boundaries at will as Bangladesh brought up their team 100 in the 13th over.    

Earlier, Zimbabwe were put to bat by captain Mahmudullah Riyad and his bowlers ensured that a sizable total was never reached by the visitors. 

The lone warrior for Zimbabwe was Brendan Taylor who scored his first T20I fifty since 2014 to give the team total some sort of respectability. 

Bangladesh made three changes to their side as experienced left-handed opener Tamim Iqbal, leg-spinner Aminul Islam and fast bowler Shafiul Islam got rested with fast bowlers Hasan Mahmud and Al-Amin Hossain and left-handed opener Naim Sheikh coming in. 

This was also Mahmud's debut after he had impressed in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) previously.