The defeat in Bangladesh’s first match in the T20 World Cup against Scotland left president of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Nazmul Hasan shocked. He said failure of three seniors was the main reason behind the defeat.
Ahead of Bangladesh’s second match in the World Cup against the hosts Oman, Nazmul said it would be impossible for Bangladesh to do well if the three seniors— Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah Riyad— continue to play like this.
“We have never thought that we could be defeated against Scotland,” Nazmul said in Oman. “We have lost practice matches against Sri Lanka and Ireland. That was fine because we didn’t have Shakib, Mahmudullah and Mustafizur Rhaman in those matches. No team can expect a win without their key players. But in the match against Scotland we had everyone. So it was unexpected.”
Bangladesh failed to have a good start while chasing a moderate target of 141. Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar opened the innings, but failed t0 deliver a strong foundation. Nazmul said it can happen in the matches, but what the next three batters did was horrible.
“Let’s not speak about the first two batters,” Nazmul said. “The way our batters did after the dismissals of the first two batters was the reason behind the defeat. We won’t be able to chase in the World Cup if we play like this— every player of the team knows it. We have to change our batting approach in order to do well.”
In the powerplay, Bangladesh were able to score only 25— 4.16 runs per over, which was one of the main reasons for Bangladesh’s shocking defeat. Nazmul said the Tigers should exploit the chance of scoring more runs in those overs.
“I didn’t understand the plan of our team,” Nazmul added. “Many of our batters were caught at the boundary line. We have to play those shots during the first six overs. You cannot play those shots when there are many fielders at the boundary lines.”
Source: United News of Bangladesh