A wake-up call for the bowlers

Spongy surfaces, worn wickets, and moist weather turned the 22 yards of Sher-e-Bangla Cricket Stadium almost to a minefield for the batsmen during the five-match twenty20 international series between Bangladesh and Australia that also continued in the first match against New Zealand.

Picking wickets looked a lot easier than scoring runs in Mirpur in the previous six T20Is played here, where 89 wickets have fallen with only 1242 runs being scored. And 131 was the highest team total in these matches.

But the conditions were slightly better in the second T20I of the five-match series between Bangladesh and New Zealand, where the surface was not too kind towards the bowlers.

Bangladesh managed to post 141 runs, the highest team total on this ground since March 2020 and considering the results against Australia and the squad strength of New Zealand, it appeared that Bangladesh would win the tie convincingly.

But things did not go as expected as the bowlers did not receive the same amount of help from the wicket that made them effective. In the end, Bangladesh managed to win the match by only four runs, but against more experienced oppositions, the margin of errors might cost the match.

Shakib Al Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman were the architects behind crushing Australia, but on Friday, they both leaked a few runs.

Though Shakib’s performance was par as he drew first blood by dismissing Rachin Ravindra and also gave a breakthrough by removing Will Young, Mustafiz failed to pick a wicket and committed some fatal errors that could have cost Bangladesh the match.

The left-arm pacer ended up with a figure of 4-0-34-0. He bowled two crucial overs- the 18th and 20th of the New Zealand innings, where he leaked the most runs, 9 and 15 respectively.

An attempted back of the hand delivery by Mustafiz in the final over turned out to be a no-ball that cost the team five runs and gifted New Zealand a free hit that could have changed the game. But luckily, Tom Latham did not have someone at the other end to capitalise.

Mohammad Saifuddin, preferred over Shoriful Islam for his batting abilities, could do no proper justice to his primary skill bowling. He was the most expensive Bangladesh bowler, giving away 36 runs in his four overs on a tough surface for the batsmen to score freely.

Mahmudullah defended his bowlers in the post-match media engagement by saying, “The wicket was good, in comparison to the previous match. Under the lights, the wicket was getting better. Our bowlers have bowled really well. They should get the credit for defending 140 runs on this wicket.”