Mash, Tamim, Mushfiq bemoan Bangladeshs shocking defeat
Sports Reporter, The Oval, London
What is the ominous sign instead of the crushing eight wicket-defeat to England is that Bangladesh failed to defend 300 plus runs twice in the week. Though Bangladesh are believed to be 20 runs short, the way England batsman went after Bangladeshi bowlers, it looked 400 still wouldnt have been safe.
The sensational collapse against India forced Bangladesh to field a batting-heavy side against England, leaving out Mehedi Hasan Miraj, which many pondered a wrong decision.
Bangladesh chose to play the extra batsman in Imrul Kayes and had to rely on Mosaddek, Soumya Sarkar and Sabbir Rahman to make up the overs. But it backfired what forced Tamim Iqbal to say that Bangladeshi bowling should be better planned.
The lesson is that 300 is not enough, he said. But whatever we score, if we dont bowl to our plans then 400 is not enough too. We need to identify the mistakes we did while bowling and we need to rectify them and make sure we are ready for next game. We just need to sit down and think where we could have done things differently.
When the two set batsmen got out in quick succession, it was tough to go all out attack, said Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza.
He admitted that Bangladesh were 20 runs short but those 20 runs were tough if at least one set batsman isnt in the crease.
Bangladesh actually didnt collapse like they did against India but the old problem resurfaced during the match against England. There was time when two batsmen built a nice partnership and got out almost same time to leave the side in quandary. The problem was almost over when Bangladesh started winning against big guns quite regularly after 2015.
But against England, that problem came to haunt them again.
After Tamim got out, Mushfiqur fell the next ball, he said. It was the problem for us. We still had Shakib, Mahmudullah and Sabbir but we couldnt really go through those last six overs. I think we are 20 to 30 runs short, especially on that sort of wicket.
While Tamim earned his ninth century, hitting 141 ball-128, Mushfiqur blasted 79 off 72. Mushfiqur later said that he didnt execute the shot well, ending up giving a simple catch to long-on. But he said that had the subsequent batsmen contributed, a bigger total would have been still possible.
I knew that on that track you cant get bogged down in the later part of an over, he said. I knew we needed a 330-plus total. Tamim got out and then the next ball I didnt execute it well. If the other batsmen could have chipped in, in the last few overs, maybe it would have been a different ball game.
Tamim said that he put the bad ball away quite easily after riding out the initial two-paced nature of the pitch. When we started the wicket was two-paced: once it was zipping and at other times it was coming slow, he said. So it was not that easy to hit big shots or hit down the line. But after the 10th over the wicket started to get better. And with a quick outfield I just batted normally.
I did not want to do anything special. I was taking one ball at a time. What I did today was I didnt miss any boundary opportunity. Whenever I got the bad ball I made sure it went for a four or six.
