Mahmud slams Tigers' batting approach

Khaled Mahmud slammed the batsmen of the Bangladesh Test team for their impatient batting against Pakistan and wondered why they failed to handle two sophomore spinners like Sajid Khan and Nauman Ali.

Mahmud, Chairman of the Game Development Committee at the Bangladesh Cricket Board, interacted with the media after the Bangladesh Under-19 team won the final of the tri-series in India.

But after the Tigers’ horrible performance, he had to speak more about them as Mahmud has been made Team Director for the upcoming New Zealand tour, for which the players will depart right after this match.

“They were very impatient. What we understand as Test batting was not visible in their batting approach. We don’t know why it’s happening. The ball was spinning, and their spinners were doing well, but our batsmen know how to handle quality spinners,” Mahmud told the reporters at SBNCS on Tuesday.

Mahmud also wonders about the batting approach at this point of the match.

“So far, we know the plan was to bat for the whole day today (Tuesday). The match will end tomorrow (today), maybe there are four or four and a half sessions to play out. Test cricket is called a Test because it is a test of patience,” he told the media.

Najmul Hossain Shanto came to the post-match virtual press conference and said there was no specific plan.

“We tried to play our normal game. There was no specific plan. Everyone played their natural game. Everyone was aggressive because it was the type of wicket where you couldn’t continue to defend. Scoring runs was important. I think the defensive mindset gave away a bigger possibility of getting out. I think that is why the batsmen tried to play shots, but unfortunately, it didn’t come off,” he said.

“It wasn’t that difficult. We were not overly aggressive. I felt that we played shots we are good at, but we did not execute it well,” he added.

Most batsmen lost their wickets trying aggressive-looking shots, and Najmul said it happened because they wanted to spend more time in the middle.

“This wicket isn’t easy to bat on. We do rely on our defence, but you cannot spend the whole day defending. You have to attack. I don’t feel we were attacking too much. We played our natural game. We should think about doing better in the next innings,” he said.