While Rahmanullah Gurbaz did the heavy lifting at the top, he found no support from the other end, as No.4 Gulbadin Naib (16) too perished without making a mark.
The contest also marked Bangladesh spinners Nasum (4-1-11-2) and Rishad Hossain (4-0-18-2) outsmarting their Afghan counterparts, skipper Rashid Khan (2/26) and his spin colleague Noor Ahmad (2/23), who had earlier produced impressive spells to restrict their opponent.
Bangladesh were bolstered by a 31-ball 52 from opener Tanzid Hasan and his 63-run opening stand with Saif Hassan (30), powering the Tigers to 87 for one at the halfway mark. But the two Afghan spinners, well backed by Azmatullah Omarzai (3-0-19-1), pulled things back with their accuracy and variations and put pressure back on Bangladesh.
Bangladesh had picked up the scoring rate after a sedate start when Tanzid got four boundaries off Fazalhaq Farooqi in the third over, in between surviving a leg-before appeal courtesy umpire’s call. Two of those fours came off edges that flew through and two were smacked down the ground past mid-on.
In the next over from AM Ghazanfar, Hassan showed intent smashing a huge six down the ground but it was Tanzid who hit more spectacular sixes off the Afghan spinner in the sixth over, one that sailed over long on and other that was picked up from his pads over deep square leg.
The partnership was broken by Afghanistan captain Rashid, whose delivery kept a little low and beat Saif’s sweep to crash into the off-stump.
Bangladesh were still in cruise mode after 10 overs but they could not do much in the face of acute pressure from the Afghanistan spinners who kept tight lines and denied any room for the batters to free up their arms.
