Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim on Wednesday stated that the Tigers are yet to come to grip with the shortest format of the game as it still remained a mystery to them.
The honest appraisal came after Bangladesh lost the one-off Twenty20 international to New Zealand by 15 runs at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Wednesday.
Bangladesh were flying high after recording a clean sweep in the just-concluded three-match one-day international series before which the two teams played out draws in two Test matches.
A win in the lone T20 would have been an ideal end to the series for the Tigers against the visitors, however, the hosts failed to live upto expectations of the capacity crowd and numerous television viewers.
‘To be honest T20 is still a mystery to us. We are yet to become a good team in this format and there are lots of areas to work on where we will reserve our focus later on,’ said Mushfiq at the post-match briefing.
‘In T20 cricket, if you give away 80 runs in the first six overs then it becomes very difficult.
‘We could not come back in the death bowling [department] and they did not give us any chance.
‘The way we batted in the powerplays, it is not possible. We can’t attack every ball. That’s not my natural batting or Naeem [Islam] bhai’s or any of our batsmen’s.
‘I doubt if we can click if we play like this in the future. We had lost too many wickets early on. In the last two overs if we had a set batsman in myself or [Mahmudullah] Riyad then I think we could have chased down 200-odd runs.
‘But we are yet to learn how to play the game at different situations and what should be the course of our actions like who should play the sheet-anchor role and who should attack,’ he added.
Mushfiq emphasised on playing more matches so that the Tigers can learn to adapt to this format where they have managed only nine wins out of 31 matches.
‘Hopefully we will play a lot of matches because you don’t expect a team to win after playing matches that take place after every four or five months,’ said the 25-year old skipper.
‘We just need to play enough T20 matches to fill our weak spots. At the moment I think we need to play a bit more of T20s so that we can understand and get used to the format better,’ he added.
However, Mushfiq wasn’t all that disappointed as he pointed out that the biggest achievement in the series was the performance of several players at different moments of crisis.
‘At different times, several players stood up and saw to it that we overcame the crisis which I feel is our biggest achievement,’ said Mushfiq.
‘It is not a one-man team that relies solely on one player and the fate of the side is dependent on him.
‘Personally when I go out to bat I feel that even if I fail, there are others capable enough to complete the job.
‘In this series everyone believed that a team came first above everything else and that is the reason we could earn a combined result,’ he added.
SCORECARD
New Zealand innings
Devcich c Shamsur b Razzak 59
Rutherford c Nasir b Sohag 17
Taylor c Naeem b Ziaur 28
Munro not out 73
Anderson b Al-Amin 18
Ronchi c & b Al-Amin 0
McCullum not out 0
Extras (lb2 w7) 9
Total (five wickets, 20 overs) 204
Fall of wickets: 1-73 (Rutherford), 2-83 (Devcich) 3-176 (Taylor) 4-200 (Anderson), 5-200 (Ronchi)
Bowling
Mashrafee 4 0 46 0
Sohag 3 0 30 1
Al-Amin 4 0 31 2
Nasir 1 0 16 0
Mahmudullah 4 0 34 0
Razzak 2 0 19 1
Ziaur 2 0 26 1
Bangladesh innings
Shamsur c McClenaghan b Southee 4
Ziaur b Southee 6
Mominul c Mills b McClenaghan9
Mushfiq c Taylor b Anderson 50
Naeem c Southee b Mills 18
Nasir c & b McCullum 28
Mahmudullah c Taylor b
Anderson 34
Sohag run out 24
Mashrafee not out 7
Razzak b Southee 0
Al-Amin not out 5
Extras (lb3, w1) 4
Total (nine wickets; 20 overs) 189
Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Shamsur) 2-11 (Ziaur) 3-19 (Mominul) 4-62 (Naeem) 5-116 (Mushfiq) 6-120 (Nasir), 7-177 (Sohag), 8-177 (Mahmudullah) 9-183(Razzak).
Bowling
Southee 4 0 38 3
McClenaghan 3 0 45 1
Mills 4 0 32 1
McCullum 2 0 18 1
Devcich 3 0 32 0
Anderson 4 0 21 2
Result: New Zealand won by 15 runs
Toss: New Zealand
Man of the match: C Munro (NZ)
-With New Age input
