Player of the series Denesh Ramdin was a happy man after his record 169 took the West Indies to an emphatic 91-run victory over Bangladesh and a 3-0 sweep of the Dhaka Bank Cup at Warner Park in St Kitts on Monday night.Ramdin and Darren Bravo (124) took the home team to 338 for seven off their 50 overs and Ravi Rampaul grabbed 4/29 as the visitors were restricted to 247 for eight off 50 overs.
Ramdin who also won the Man-of-the-Match award said it felt wonderful to clean sweep the series."Of course getting the third highest score and being called in line with Brian Lara's 169 is also wonderful," Ramdin said."We came here with two wins and we wanted to finish off the series strongly and I am glad that we did that and I had a hand in achieving it as well. Bravo was a perfect foil for me and both play spin well, which worked in our favour."They had just two seamers and we knew that once we settled it would be difficult to get wickets with the old ball and we would prosper."
Rampaul, who was the best bowler in the recent Caribbean Premier League (CPL) T20 tournament with 18 wickets, broke the back of the Bangladeshi batting.After losing two wickets with just two runs on the board, it looked like another embarrassment from the Tigers, but skipper Mushfiqur Rahim and opener Tamim Iqbal ensured some respectability.They added 99 runs for the third wicket before Iqbal (55) was bowled by Sunil Narine to leave the floodgates open. He faced 62 balls and struck nine fours.
When Mushfiqur fell for 72 off 113 balls with eight fours, the game was over. Wickets fell at regular intervals, and it was just a matter of time,Earlier, Dwayne Bravo won the toss and decided to take first strike.The home team got into immediate trouble when both openers, Lendl Simmons and Chris Gayle, were dismissed within the first five overs.Simmons (6) hit a boundary in the first over but was dismissed by Mashrafe Mortaza while Gayle also made six before edging Al-Amin Hossain to wicket keeper Mushfiqur Rahim.But that was all the success in the early part of the innings as Ramdin and Bravo cut loose to set up an emphatic win for the West Indies.