The manner in which Nasir Hossain got out can best describe Bangladesh’s batting in the first innings. The team had already lost its top half, so the need of the hour was someone to try to stay at the crease and help them avoid the follow-on. Nasir was completely oblivious to the fact and batted in a way as if Bangladesh were running short of time to complete the win. He attempted a reckless shot at long-on but could not reach anywhere near the ball.
Consequently the ball went into the sky and Suleman Benn ran from the midwicket to complete the catch. It left Bangladesh at 118-6 and West Indies knew immediately that any remote chance the visitors had of avoiding the follow-on has evaporated with this shot.
All West Indies players ran towards Benn to celebrate the catch, something which was close to a victory celebration. Bangladesh were finally dismissed for 182 runs to give West Indies a shot at victory as they secured a 302-run lead in the first innings.
Nasir, however, is not the only batsman to blame for such an amateurish batting. On a pitch that yielded nearly 500 runs for the West Indies, Bangladesh collapsed almost from the beginning without any serious resistance.
Shamsur Rahman and Mominul Haque momentarily defied the West Indies bowlers with a 62-run stand but Mominul’s dismissal for 51 in the last ball before tea break, in an apparently erroneous decision spoiled all of his hard work.
Mahmudullah was trapped leg-before immediately after tea and then came Nasir’s horror shot leaving the onus on skipper Mushfiqr Rahim and debutant Shubhagata Hom.
When Shubhagata gave a simple return catch to Benn, the most successful West Indies bowler with 5-39, Bangladesh were still trailing West Indies by 337 runs. Mushfiq’s unbeaten 48 did little to reduce the gap.
‘I am disappointed with all our dismissals,’ said coach Chandika Hathurusinghe. ‘There is no reason that I can find out that we get out to that kind of score,’ said the Sri Lankan, who has witnessed a series of batting failure in his brief stint as coach.
Asked if the disease is incurable, Hathurusinghe found a shortcoming in the batsmen’s ability and asked them to maximise their minimum talent.
‘Look at their stats, they all are averaging between 20s and 30s,’ said Hathurusinghe. ‘There is no terror on the wicket, I mean the ball started to go up and down a little bit later on.
‘It’s all about your application. Whatever you have you have to maximise, that’s what we are trying to do but I was very disappointed with the batting effort today.
‘Nothing to explain, this is my first Test match [as Bangladesh coach] and I am seeing them playing Test cricket. I don’t expect them to be the world beater, but they can do better than this because they have the talent.’
Hathurusinghe pleaded for some time saying that he is only working with the Bangladesh team for two months. Without being curious about how his predecessors have failed to rectify the problem, Hathurusinghe oozed some confidence adding that better days are just ahead.
‘This is my second month so we are still long way to go. I don’t want to talk about what happened in the past, I am just looking forward to. They are better than this for sure,’ he said.
-With New Age input
