Bangladesh pay for sluggish batting, dismal bowling

Bangladesh national cricket team were crushed by India in their Women’s Asia Cup 2022 in Sylhet as the hosts succumbed to a 59-run defeat on Saturday.

The clash between the sides was a rematch of last edition’s final, where Bangladesh won by three wickets to be crowned Champions.

But four years on, Bangladesh, despite the home support, failed to repeat the result as they were beaten in all categories by their neighbours.

Batting first, India put 159-5 on board, courtesy of a fifty from opener Shafali Verma. In reply, Bangladesh were sluggish from the start, and frequent loss of wickets in the middle overs meant they could only manage 100-7 in their quota of 20 overs.

The difference was made in the contrasting powerplays of the sides. While Indian openers Shafali and Smriti Mandhana scored 59 in their opening six overs, Bangladesh could manage only 30.

“When you are chasing such a big target, the powerplay becomes very important. If we scored 40-50 runs in that, the margin wouldn’t have been so big. The match could have been better,” Bangladesh skipper Nigar Sultana Joty pointed it out in the post-match press conference.

She added, “In T20s, the powerplay is the most important. That is what we discuss most with the coaching staff. There will be dot balls as batters tend towards boundaries more in this phase. But when there are enough boundaries, the dot balls do not matter much.

“Unfortunately, the openers got more singles and played many dot balls. But if they could have hit 3-4 more boundaries, then our target of scoring 45+ runs in the powerplay would have been achieved.”

Bangladesh’s bowling, which is considered their strength, was also not on par with their set standards as they failed to make inroads into the Indian batting lineup early on, leading to them setting a big total.

“Our bowlers had an off day. We bowled horribly in the powerplay, which generally does not happen. We gave away too many runs there. And we also bowled a lot of loose deliveries in the latter part of the innings. You don’t generally expect this from our bowlers. If we can overcome this in the next matches, we can do better,” Nigar said regarding the matter.

“There was no problem with our homework. All of India’s boundaries in the powerplay came on bad balls. We have all analysed their batting. But the players failed to do well today, which is unfortunate,” she added.

Bangladesh never looked like part while chasing the big total, but Nigar believes it was just a bad day at the office.

“It’s not like we have never scored 160. We have. First thing is that our start was not good enough. Second, we could not form partnerships in the middle overs. We lost wickets frequently and hit very few boundaries,” the Bangladesh skipper said.

While they are still ahead of Thailand with a better net run-rate, Bangladesh still have the axe of failure to qualify for the semis hanging on their head.

Thailand will play Malaysia today and will look to better their net run-rate, and Bangladesh are keeping an eye on that.

“It (qualifying for the semis) has become a bit tough for us after Thailand beat Pakistan. We will have to play with calculations in mind. Thailand will face Malaysia tomorrow (today), and they will try to increase their run-rate. After that, we also have to do such,” she said.

Bangladesh will take on Sri Lanka in their next match on Monday.