Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto lamented their poor batting show in the middle overs, citing this one as the main reasons for their 8-run defeat to Afghanistan on DLS method in the crucial game of the Super 8 phase of T20 World Cup.
The Tigers began the game with the possibility of making it semifinal and were given the target to chase the total in 12.1 overs after holding Afghanistan off to a moderate 115-5.
Shanto said the semifinal matter was well in their head and they wanted to go hard from the first overs to materialize the hopes.
He further explained that they will bat normally to win the game if they lose early wickets.
To the dismay of Bangladesh, they couldn’t make anything happen and for that, Shanto blamed their poor execution with the bat in the middle overs.
“The plan was to go hard in the first six overs, if we lost early wickets, the plan was to bat normally, but that didn’t happen and the middle-order couldn’t execute,” Shanto said after the match.
“The batting needs to improve, our top-order didn’t perform well. It can happen, the ball got wet and that’s a good thing. As I said, we didn’t execute well with the bat and made a lot of wrong decisions.”
But the question raised as to why Bangladesh didn’t go for all-out attack when just a win wouldn’t have mattered much.
“I think we bowled really well, we did lots of good things but as a batting unit, we made poor decision especially in the middle overs and that’s what cost us today,” Shanto said.
“The whole tournament we have bowled really well, both the pacers and the spinners, especially Rishad was great, the fast bowlers also did really well. Also, as a fielding group, we did well.”
By snatching a nervy victory, Afghanistan made history as they confirmed the semifinal of a T20 World Cup for the first time in their history. They beat teams like Australia in Super 8 apart from Bangladesh.
And as it was expected, Afghan captain Rashid Khan was over the moon.
“It’s something like a dream for us as a team being in the semifinal. It’s all about the way we have started the tournament. The belief came while we beat New Zealand. It’s unbelievable, I don’t have any words to describe my feelings,” Rashid said.
“Back home, everyone is so happy for this big achievement. The only guy who put us in the semifinal was Brian Lara and we proved that right. Before the competition at the welcome party, I told him, ‘We won’t let you down. We’ll make it through and prove you’re right.’ I am proud of this team.
We thought 130-135 was a good total on this wicket. We were 15-20 runs short. It was all about the mindset. We knew they would come hard at us to chase that in 12 overs to get into the semifinal. That’s where we could take advantage. If we bowled into the stumps, we had a better chance to getting them out.”
