Bangladesh can take a lot from the inaugural edition of Asia Cup Twenty20 tournament despite losing the final to India by eight wickets at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on Sunday.
The unexpected rain that halted the match before being curtailed into a 15-over-a-side affair was a bit too much for the Tigers to digest as they were desperately looking to find a strong foothold in the shortest-format.
Tigers were considering this tournament to be a platform to assess their strength in the Twenty20 format, where they are ranked below Afghanistan at number 10.
Though the Tigers could never manage to trouble the Indian batsmen, who reached 122-2 with seven balls to spare after restricted the hosts to 120-5, it won’t take away their memorable run in the tournament.
But they expressed themselves as a professional unit after their loss in the opener against the eventual champions and raised their performance to their limit to take a berth in the final at the expense of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
‘It’s a huge step for us as far as Twenty20 cricket is concerned,’ Bangladesh captain Mashrafee bin Murtaza told reporters at the post match conference.
‘I think the boys can take a lot of positives from it.
‘They have started to believe in each other. Even if someone fails they have the belief that the next one will perform. It is the sign of a grown up team and hopefully we can play some good cricket from here,’ he added.
Mashrafee can take the confidence from the fact that they have reached the final despite losing their talented left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman at the half-way stage of the tournament.
Mustafiz strained his muscle that forced the team management to rule him out after the third game against Sri Lanka, while two of their major contributor Mushfiqur Rahim and Sakib al Hasan failed to perform according to their ability.
Mushfiq scored only 40 runs from his five outings while Sakib managed 77 runs and five wickets in equal number of games.
Batsmen Sabbir Rahman and Mahmudullah shared the major responsibilities in their batting while Taskin Ahmed and Al-Amin Hossain took up the baton in the bowling department.
Sabbir, who scored 176 runs that included a match winning 80-run innings against Sri Lanka, was adjudged as the man of the tournament while Mahmudullah added a new dimension in his batting by scoring runs in an aggressive manner.
The right hander scored 121 runs with an average of 121with a strike rate of 165.75.
Al-Amin picked up 11 wickets that provided Tigers regular breakthrough at required intervals while Taskin managed to put the pressure through maintaining his accurate line and length and though he picked up just three wickets but his economy rate was 5.75, outstanding in this format of the game.
As Tigers left for the ICC World Twenty20 in India on Monday they are sure to take these positives and the feeling that it is time for the seniors to perform their due in the big event.
-With New Age input
