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Bangladesh national men’s cricket team will look forward to salvaging a result and keeping their hopes of reaching the final of the ongoing tri-series in New Zealand against the hosts today.
The Tigers lost to Pakistan in their opening game before crumbling against New Zealand in the second. In both matches, Bangladesh’s batting was poor, and they failed to provide any competition.
In their first match, Bangladesh managed only 146-8 chasing 168, and they got that close only because of Yasir Ali Chowdhury’s 42 runs off 21 balls.
In their next match against the Blackcaps, Bangladesh only managed 137-8, courtesy of Nurul Hasan Sohan’s unbeaten 25 off 12 deliveries.
The other batters looked out of sorts throughout, from top to bottom. Against New Zealand, Najmul Hossain Shanto came into the XI instead of Sabbir Rahman and scored 33 but used up 29 deliveries trying to do so.
Bangladesh will look to turn things around as they need to win their remaining two matches to reach the final of the tri-series. Skipper Shakib Al Hasan, who missed the first match against Pakistan, was seen giving a pep talk to the players during practice on Tuesday.
Bangladesh T20 team’s technical consultant Sridharan Sriram said in a video message that the skipper is doing well in keeping the team’s environment healthy.
“The players are very calm. In international cricket, you will have ups and downs, and we have to stay steady through them. Shakib has been brilliant in keeping the zen environment around, he has taken the boys out, always talking to them.
“He has a very clear plan of how he wants to take this team forward. He has all our support; we just want him to run the team. It’s his team, and we will support him from all ends,” Sriram said.
For now, the Indian coach is only taking positives from the first two matches, despite the defeats.
“We want to keep experimenting, giving people different roles and different challenges. There has been a lot of improvement.
“Our pacers are executing a lot better. Taskin (Ahmed) bowled well in both matches, Shoriful (Islam) came in and hit those hard lengths, and Hasan (Mahmud), returning from an injury, is a positive. Fizz (Mustafizur Rahman) is working on a few things and will return very strong.
“It was very heartening to see (Najmul Hossain) Shanto come in and the way he batted against Boult and Southee was positive. The middle order has become very strong after Shakib’s return. Once Afif (Hossain) and Liton (Das) get going, we will have a formidable batting lineup,” the Bangladesh technical consultant said.
While Sriram talked about getting Afif and Liton in touch, it seems perplexing how the batters have lost form in this particular series.
The dire performances are definitely difficult for Bangladesh to digest, but Sriram asked the fans for support in their mission for glory.
“I would request all the fans and the media to keep supporting us. It’s about the country and the passion that the country has. I assure you the boys are doing their very best to bring glory to the country. One of the values we have in the team is to make Bangladesh proud and win the fans over. I just want you to keep patience. We have got the core squad, which is going to do well in the future,” he said.
Sriram added, “We look forward to the World Cup. We will get our answers. And we will make Bangladesh proud with the brand of cricket we are going to play.”
