A mini collapse in the middle-order can still be covered and the innings resurrected if the top three play out more than twenty overs. What Bangladesh did wrong on Sunday was they did not finish with a flourish, and it resulted in the 21-run loss to Pakistan in the Asia Cup opener.
The majority of the viewing audience and keen observers are almost always happy when the Tigers offer to fight till the end and though skipper Mushfiqur Rahim believed they didn’t focus till the last ball, it was still laudable.
This time their fight began with the revamped opening stand where one man still has a lot to prove and another really needed to make a point; the jury is still out on Nazimuddin but Tamim Iqbal has the monkey off his back.
“Of course it is relaxing,” Tamim said yesterday. “It is important to take the pressure off.”
With matches against India and Sri Lanka coming up in the next seven days, Tamim can bat with more freedom after hitting 64 off 89 balls with six boundaries and a six.
“I have similar plans for the next matches. I want to give the team a good platform as Nazimuddin and I did yesterday [Sunday].
“It eventually gets us very close to the opposition if the top-order clicks. In fact it is proven that a good start always creates the perfect base for a batting line-up,” he said.
It was the sort of innings that he played in the World Cup opener against India. In the first-wicket stand where he added 45 runs, Tamim let Nazimuddin go on the attack. Even in the subsequent partnership with Jahurul Islam, it was the man making a comeback after two and a half years who played more shots. Tamim had by then settled down. In the six overs he batted with Shakib Al Hasan, he creamed 22 runs during which he also reached his fifty.
“I want to play like myself. There are times in every player’s career where he has to adjust, take time. As you know I didn’t spend too much time at the crease in the last series but now that’s in the past. As they say, ‘Time will heal everything’,” said the Chittagonian who made his first ODI half-century in seven months.
Now the flashpoint of his two-hour knock remained his pointed gesture towards the players’ pavilion but a friend of Tamim confirmed that it was towards chief selector Akram Khan, his uncle, to whom he raised his bat for sticking by the left-hander. Tamim however didn’t want to comment on the incident.
One would assume that since the point has been made by Tamim through the 64 against Pakistan, the Tigers would now bank on normal service being resumed.
-With The Daily Star input
