Bahrain Beat Mongolia by 8 Wickets — Ali Dawood's 5 for 5 Keeps Bahrain Perfect

Ali Dawood's first over set the tone for the morning. Gandemberel Ganbold hit a four and was bowled; two balls later Uugan-Erdene Batjargal was bowled too. By the end of the fifth over Mongolia were 10 for 6, and Dawood had four of them. He finished with 5 for 5 from four overs, and Mongolia were all out for 17 in the 13th over.

Bahrain's reply had a twist in it. Luwsanzundui Erdenebulgan took two wickets in two balls in the first over, but Asif Ali and Fiaz Ahmed finished the job off the seventh ball. Bahrain won by 8 wickets, with 113 balls remaining.

Nine of Mongolia's ten wickets were bowled or lbw, which tells you how Bahrain went about it. Ali Dawood and Rizwan Butt bowled their eight overs for 11 runs and seven wickets between them, attacking the stumps from the first ball. Asif Shaikh's two overs cost a single run, and Abdul Majid needed only four balls to take the last two wickets.

Bahrain's batting got its only scare of the day in the first over of the chase, when Shujaat Rasool and Imran Anwar fell to consecutive balls. Asif Ali, who made 89 against Kuwait two days earlier, responded with a four and a six from three balls, and he and Fiaz Ahmed had it done one ball into the second over.

For Mongolia this was a hard day, and there is no point pretending otherwise. But after the early collapse, the middle and lower order showed a willingness to stay in: Bayarjargal Batbayr faced 17 balls, Sodbileg Gantulga 15 and Od Lutbayar 13, and they took the innings into the 13th over. Sticking around against an attack of this quality is a skill, and runs will come with more time at this level.

And then there was Luwsanzundui Erdenebulgan. Defending 17, he bowled Shujaat Rasool and had Imran Anwar caught by Temuulen Amarmend in consecutive balls. Two wickets against the unbeaten leaders of the group: those are memories a developing cricket nation can build on.

Bahrain chose to field. With nine bowled-or-lbw dismissals, the Bahrain bowlers clearly benefited from bowling straight, though a low score on its own says more about the gap between the sides than about the pitch. Bahrain's reply, 18 from seven balls including a six, suggests there was little wrong with the surface for batting.

Ali Dawood was already Bahrain's most economical bowler against Kuwait, with 3 for 14 in a match of 377 runs. Here, against a far less experienced line-up, he was simply unplayable: four overs, two maidens, five runs, five wickets. Four were bowled and one lbw. There is a quiet beauty in a spell like that, the bails doing the talking while the scoreboard barely moves.

This match didn't have a CricIntel preview — we'll have full analysis for the next encounter.

Bahrain are five from five and lead Qualifier A with ten points (NRR +2.831). Kuwait are second on eight from five, Qatar third with six from four, Bhutan fourth with four and Thailand fifth with two. Mongolia and Myanmar are yet to register a win.

Mongolia are back in action on October 12 against Qatar. Bahrain do not feature in the October 12 fixtures, which are Qatar v Mongolia, Bhutan v Kuwait and Myanmar v Thailand.