Home ›› 03 Jul 2022 ›› Sport
Bangladesh cricket team has tried eight different sets of openers since Tamim Iqbal decided not to play Twenty20 until further announcement but none of the pairs could not fire.
If rain does not wash out the first match of the three-match T20I series between West Indies and Bangladesh at Dominica last night, the Tigers might have opted for the ninth opening pair in the last one and half years.
Munim Shahriar, who has embarked on his first away tour is likely to pair up with Liton Kumar Das at the top of the Bangladesh batting order.
They will be the ninth opening pair that Bangladesh tried in 30 T20I matches since March 9, 2020.
In absence of Tamim, Bangladesh tried with the pairs of Liton Das-Mohammad Naim, Soumya Sarkar-Mohammad Naim, Mahedi Hasan-Mohammad Naim,Liton Das-Soumya Sarkar, Liton Das-Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Naim-Saif Hasan, and Mohammad Naim-Nazmul Hossain Shanto as openers.
The opening is an area where Bangladesh struggles, in the last 30 matches only once did the Tiger openers manage to put a hundred-run partnership which came against Zimbabwe where Naim and Soumya added 102 runs 13.1 over.
Naim and Soumya opened the innings for Bangladesh in eight matches, apart from the hundred-run stand against Zimbabwe the pair performed pretty ordinarily as their second-best contribution is only 24 runs on the first wicket. Their total run is 198 in these eight matches.
Liton and Naim opened the innings 14 times, their highest partnership was 77 runs against Zimbabwe in Mirpur in 2020. They put together 315 runs together, the average runs per innings is 22.50 and they scored at the rate of 6.17 runs per over.
These are the two longest serving opening pairs, apart from them Shakib, Mahedi and Shanto appeared as openers only once but they also could not make a significant impact in their new roles.
Shakib paired up with Naim only once, in the T20 World Cup match against West Indies and the affair ended in 21 runs after 4.3 overs where Shakib’s contribution was just nine runs from 12 balls.
Mahedi was tagged with Naim as an opener in the fifth T20I of the series against Australia, together they did fairly well as they added 42 runs in 4.3 overs at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, Mirpur.
One of the weirdest decisions by the selectors was to push Saif Hasan as a T20I opener where he failed miserably. He scored one and zero in the two matches he played against Pakistan. He was sent with Naim to start the batting, in two matches the pair added only four runs.
In the next match of the series against Pakistan, the team management sent Nazmul Hossain Shanto with Naim replacing Saif, the new pair improved a little bit as they managed seven runs before Shanto got out for just five runs.
The latest player in this musical chair is Munim, who paired up with Naim in the T20I series against Afghanistan.
But that too failed to improve the scenario significantly, the pair added seven and 10 runs in the first and second T20I matches against the Afghans respectively.
Munim had a good run in the Bangladesh Premier League T20 which earned him the national team cap, he scored 17 and four so far in his two international appearances.
As the selectors discarded Naim from the national team after his poor show and decided to move on with Munim who is an aggressive batsman, Bangladesh is likely to see another pair on top when Liton and Munim will come to open the innings.
The inclusion of Anamul Haque, who hasn’t played any T20 for Bangladesh since 2015 also provides another possibility.
Anamul had a record-breaking season in the Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League where he scored 1042 runs in 14 innings.
The team management might opt for him as well which could create another pair on top.
Recently, the batting coach of the national team, Jamie Siddons told the media that “You can’t keep chopping and changing players”. But Jamie might find that there have been constant changes in the opening partnership and as a former Bangladesh head coach, he might not be surprised at all.
