Kiwi pacers wreck havoc on B'desh; restrict for 174

St Peter's, Antigua, Apr 2 (UNI) Bangladesh batsmen found the pace trio of Scott Styris, Shane Bond and Jacob Oram too hot to handle and the Tigers caved in for 174 in 48.3 overs against New Zealand in a World Cup Super Eight league match at Sir Vivian Richards ground here today.

New Zealand, who had lost to Bangladesh in a warm up match before the start of the tournament, were looking for revenge as they came up with yet another clinical show and deflated their rivals giving them no chance or hope they might have entertained.

Styris claimed four wickets conceding 43 runs in his ten-over spell while Oram scalped three for 30 and Bond took two wickets for just 15 runs in his quota of overs.

Bangladesh put in an altogether better effort with the bat than in their previous few games, as their openers added 55 runs for the first wicket. Aftab Ahmed and Saqibul Hassan then added 43 runs for the third wicket to give semblance of fight but other middle order batsmen could not emulate the top order and caved in.

Bangladesh, the surprise qualifiers, at one stage were 104 for two but then lost eight remaining wickets for just 70 runs due to some rank poor shots and inability to negotiate the disciplined fast bowling.

Openers Tamim Iqbal and new inductee Javed Omar made a sedate start after Stephen Fleming won the toss and opted to field. The Kiwis' list of injury worries however, grew once more as Michael Mason could send down just nine balls before pulling up with a calf problem, leaving Craig McMillan to complete the over.

Mason becomes the fourth Black Cap to find himself on the sick list after Darryl Tuffey, Lou Vincent and Ross Taylor. Fleming will be praying very hard that his spearhead Shane Bond -- who is notoriously injury-prone -- last through the tournament.

Bond was again impressive in his five-over opening spell, giving away five runs, but once again, it was the towering figure of Jacob Oram who gave his side the breakthrough removing the two openers.

Teenager Tamim continued to contrive ways to get himself out.

Against Australia on Saturday, he picked out a fielder and hoisted the ball high towards him. Today, he went inside the line to try and sweep, overbalanced and coudn't not make his ground in time.

Brendon McCullum, standing up to Oram moved fast to knock the bails off even though he had taken the ball down the leg side.

Till then however, he had played a largely composed knock barring a couple of rushes of blood. With the calming presence of Omar alongside, Tamim cut down on the charges down the pitch and sought to play as straight as possible, till he lost his composure fatally.

In all, Tamim faced 54 deliveries for his 29 and hit four boundaries. Omar was equally unhurried in his approach to run-making, getting to a 51-ball 22 with three hits to the fence before he played at a ball too close to his body and edged for McCullum. Bangladesh were 62 for two.

Aftab Ahmed, who looked set for a big innings, too was a victim of poor shot selection, skying a drive to long-on where substitute fielder Mark Gillespie held a well-judge catch off Scott Styris. He was out for 27 off 39 balls with three boundaries and team's scorecard read 105 for 3.

Bangladesh lost their next six wickets for just 35 runs in a space of 14.1 overs to be reduced, to 140 for 9 as batsmen looked in hurry to return to pavilion.

However, a 34 run last wicket stand between Mohd Rafique, who became the top-scorer for his side with unbeaten 30 (2x6, 1x4, 36 balls) and Syed Rasel 10 (1x4, 18balls) took the score to 174 before Oram bowled Rasel to fold up the innings.

Bangladesh made two changes to the side that crashed by 10 wickets to Australia, bringing back left-arm seamer Syed Rasel for Tapas Baishya and fielding Javed Omar for Shahriyar Nafees, who has looked completely out of sorts at this World Cup.

UNI