A dead-ball decision in the third and final T20I denied Brad Evans of a hat-trick and eventually Zimbabwe of a win.

Bangladesh clinch T20I series amidst dead-ball controversy

Bangladesh needed only 14 in the last three overs in the series decider, but Blessing Muzarabani conceded just five off the 18th over. In the 19th, Richard Ngarava did even better, giving away four and removing Yasir Ali. That left Bangladesh to chase five in the last over. They had six wickets in hand, but one of them was new batter Mosaddek Hossain.

Tanzid Hasan Tamim, who had held the innings together so far, got off the strike with a single off he first ball. With his next two balls, Evans bowled Mosaddek and had Saifuddin at deep mid-wicket. The hat-trick ball was straight and low and Mahedi Hasan, in an attempt to play to the leg side, missed the ball completely. Mahedi would almost certainly have been given out leg-before ... had the umpire not called dead ball. Blessing Muzarabani had started to run back from short fine leg to deep fine leg as Evans ran in, with the umpire stopping play.

Thus reprived, Mahedi hoicked the next ball to the cover boundary to seal the game with two balls to spare. That also gave Bangladesh the series by a 2-1 margin.

Earlier, Brian Bennett (47 in 38 balls) and Dion Myers (73 in 53) had helped Zimbabwe post 143-7 as Saifuddin returned 2-35 and Taskin Ahmed conceded only 16 from his four overs. Ngarava (2-20), Evans (2-26), Muzarabani (4-0-17-0), and Sikandar Raza (2-38) all bowled well, but Tanzid (66 not out in 58) saw Bangladesh home.