Top-order batsmen’s return to form seems to be the only solution to the present crisis of the Bangladesh cricket team, said skipper Mushfiqur Rahim, as the Tigers received yet another thrashing in the ICC World Twenty20, this time at the hands of India by eight wickets on Friday. Bangladesh suffered a batting collapse early in their innings in three consecutive matches and ended up losing the game on all three occasions to ruin their prospects in the tournament.
They lost two wickets in the first over against Hong Kong, were 3-16 inside four overs against the West Indies and continued the trend by going down 3-21 before the fifth over in their innings against India.
Some late sparks by Mahmudullah, who showed some batting skills for the first time in many days with an unbeaten 33 from 23 balls, took Bangladesh to 138-7, but it was not enough to prevent India’s formidable batting line-up from cruising to an easy win.
‘Considering India’s batting line-up, we had to score at least 150,’ Mushfiq said after the match. ‘We lost a couple of early wickets, and the middle-order didn’t score many. Nothing is working for us, and we were probably 20 runs short.
‘We shouldn’t blame 6-7-8 but the responsibility should lie with the top-order. We have to score the runs to post a good score.’
Bangladesh made a number of experiments with their top-order batting, especially with the one-down positing but nothing paid off.
Shamsur Rahman was the latest batsman to get a chance in this position, but all he could manage was a first-ball duck. Playing only his first ball of the competition the manner in which he was dismissed raised quite a few eyebrows.
‘When it comes off, it looks great. When it doesn’t come off, it looks awful. That’s the way he plays, but he probably should have waited for at least one ball. Take a look at the wicket and then go for his shots,’ said Mushfiq.
Mushfiq indicated that he will consider himself or Sakib al Hasan further up in the batting order in the remaining two matches after all his experiments apparently failed.
‘Our plan was for Sakib to play at 3, me at 4. But because Nasir [Hossain] and [Mahmudullah] Riyad were not in good form and Sabbir [Rahman] is a new guy, we didn’t want to risk Sakib going in very early,’ said Mushfiq.
‘He plays his shots and could get out early too. Same could have happened with me. But we are going to think about it again, and probably bat in the top-order,’ he said.
BRIEF SCORES
Bangladesh 138-7 in 20 overs (Anamul 44, Mahmudullah 33 not out, Mushfiq 24; A Mishra 3-26, R Ashwin 2-15) v India 141-2 in 18.2 overs (V Kohli 57 not out, R Sharma 56, MS Dhoni 22 not out)
Result: India won by 8 wickets.
Man of the match: R Ashwin (IND)
-With New Age input
