Mahmudullah hit top-scored 74 off 81 balls, including three boundaries and two sixes, while unbeaten Kayes stayed for 72* off 89 balls with six boundaries for Bangladesh’s second most scoring innings and for the first time playing full 50 overs in the tournament till the date.
Starting from a miserable 87/5 in 20.5 overs, Mahmudullah-Kayes carried the team collection to 215/6 in 46.2 overs as both shared a 25.3 overs boosting partnership innings before Mahmudullah was caught by Rashid Khan off Aftab Alam.
Opting to bat, Bangladesh, in the beginning showed the same spirit of their last two matches, losing two wickets early within the 6th over for an 18-run, and continued down towards before Mahmudullah and Kayes played a comeback innings to cross the decent 200 runs mark.
Mushfiqur Rahim came in and set well to crease in the 3rd wicket with opener Liton Kumar Das to recover early hamper. But opener Liton hurried to play a poor shot off Rashid Khan to end an impressive innings when scoreboard showing 81 for 3 in18.4 overs.
Liton [41 off 43b; 3x4] fell nine runs short for his maiden ODI half century as he was caught by Ihsanullah, sharing a partnership of 63 off 13.1 overs with Mushfiq.
Shakib Al Hasan came in and played just one ball before the miss communication of understanding with Mushfiq to be run out with duck on same score in the last ball of 19th over.
Bangladesh suffered the next blow in the penultimate ball of the 21st over with another run out as Mushfiq failed to way back to reach at his non-striker’s end from halfway, coming out following Imrul Kayes’s shot off Rashid Khan on 87/5 in 20.5 overs from where Mahmudullah and Kayes started the moral boosting innings.
With day’s score, Mushfiq [33 off 52b; 2x4; 1x6] crossed the 5000-runs mark in ODIs, starting the game from a seven-run behind, after Tamim Iqbal and Shakib among Bangladesh players while become world’s 84th cricketer to achieve this feat. Mushfiq aggregated so far 5026 runs from 190 matches with an average of 33.73 runs.
Skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza [10 off 9b; 1x4] was another double digit scorer for Bangladesh.
Aftab Alam [3/54], Mujeeb Ur Rahman [1/35] and Rashid Khan [1/46] shared five wickets for Afghanistan.