Bangladeshi bowlers could not penetrate enough to put the last nail on the coffin as Pakistan managed to put 239-6 after struggling at 77-5 in the second one-day international at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Sunday. Despite being in firm control of the match after they triggered a top-order collapse, somehow their defensive mindset let the Pakistan team escape with a reasonable total.
That prevented the Tigers from booking the Pakistan team below their lowest ODI score against the Bangladesh, 161 in historic 1999 World match.
The Tigers also had the chance to dismiss them bellow 177, their lowest score in Bangladesh, scored in 2011.
Skipper Mashrafee bin Murtaza, being the third Bangladeshi cricketer to feature in 150 ODI’s after left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak and Mohammad Ashraful, could not push his opponents hard enough to surrender meekly.
That left few questions unanswered as whether Bangladesh started believing they had already won the match half way through the Pakistan innings or their approach lacked the killer instinct from start to finish.
Bangladeshi bowlers opted to bowl in areas that suggested they were more concerned in stemming the run flow despite half of the Pakistani batsmen were already sent back into the dressing room and thus gave the opponents time to settle down in the wicket.
The only exception was seen when Rubel Hossain came into attack as he looked ferocious during his opening two spells that cost him 16 runs from six overs before an expensive 11 runs in his last six balls took some gloss off his figure.
Rubel was bowling in full swing in his second spell which was expected to last more than two overs, But Mashrafee preferred to rotate the bowlers leaving him largely unused, which made the life of Pakistani batsmen somewhat easy.
Part time bowler Nasir Hossain and Mahmudullah shared seven overs between them that also raised the question whether Mashrafee was short of imagination when things were going his way. His penchant for occasional bowler already earned him some criticism during the recent World Cup.
Some questions were raised in quarter-final against India when Mashrafee used his part-timers at a time Bangladesh were gaining upper hand against India.
His decision to finish off the quota of Nasir instead of continuing the pressure with Rubel arguably helped India regroup.
A similar approach was seen in successive match of Bangladesh’s skipper at the helm though this time batsmen saved him from some criticism unlike the game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
-With New Age input
