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          Ajmal on vacation from Hogwarts

          • Nitin SundarMar 30, 2014, 01:14 PM
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              Social media manager Nitin spent his formative years perfecting the art of landing the googly, before blossoming into a book-cricket specialist. More excellence followed in the underarm version of the game before, like the majority of India's misguided youth, he started taking studies seriously. After four forgettable years of electrical engineering, followed by a rigorous MBA and 16 months in the strategy consulting industry, he began to ponder life's more profound issues. Such as the angle made by Brian Lara's bat with the horizontal at the peak of his back-lift. A move to ESPNcricinfo followed and Nitin is now a prolific nurdler in office cricket, with a questionable technique against the short ball.

          Must-win game for Bangladesh. Their fans brought energy and colour to Mirpur. So did their players.

          Going by the law of averages, today was going to be Bangladesh's day?

          It began to go belly up for the hosts quite early.

          Ahmed Shehzad was in prime touch, but his opening partner took a while to get going.

          Pakistan were completely out of danger once Shehzad reached 40, courtesy the broadcaster's continued problems with understanding causality.

          While the conventional strokes were serving him sell, Shehzad also tried to play some cheeky shots, without much success.

          Pakistan lost three quick wickets, but Shoaib Malik settled in to support Shehzad.

          Batting was a breeze for Shehzad on the day, and his 100 came up with time to spare.

          Shehzad celebrated quite emotionally too, a bit like Kohli.

          Bangladesh wilted at the death, when Shahid Afridi came out to join the run-fest.

          Bangladesh's chase got off to an average start, with most of the runs coming off Pakistan's wrong-footed seamer.

          Anamul Haque showed some promise, and even sent Saeed Ajmal's first ball to the boundary. However, he couldn't survive the over.

          Bangladesh's task assumed daunting proportions against Pakistan's army of slower men.

          As expected, Bangladesh subsided without a whimper.

          Nobody likes a boring T20 game, right?

          Wrong.

          Ouch.