Bangladesh hope the rain to stay away and allow them to play the second game without an interruption as they eye to take a lead in the three-match ODI series, to be held Friday at County Ground, Chelmsford.
The first match was washed out due to rain after Bangladesh apparently kept them in a position of dominance. The Tigers who were put into bat first, racked up 246-9, a score that deemed not satisfactory but they reduced Ireland to 65-3 in 16.3 overs before the rain arrived.
With rain in the forecast, the question was why captain TamimIqbal didn’t introduce spinners from two ends to complete 20 overs as early as possible, which might bring DLS to the fore to determine the result. SpeciallyShakib Al Hasan was not introduced into the attack, raising a question.
But according to batter NajmulHossainShanto who made second highest 44, after Mushfiqur Rahim’s 61, said the batter couldn’t bat as it was expected.
“The wicket was batting friendly and it was possible to score 290-300 runs. But what we did was to assess the wicket first before going after the bowlers that didn’t go well for us,” Shanto said after the match.
“We couldn’t build up any significant partnership, which was another point to note. If we can build up a good partnership we can give us a shot to put up 300 plus total.”
Bangladesh had just two fifty plus partnership with Mushfiqur Rahim and MehidyHasanMiraz adding 65 and Shanto and TowhidHridoy combining for 50 runs.
“The top order batters need to take responsibility. But unfortunately we couldn’t make our start count. It was our duty to make the partnership bigger but we failed to do this. Hopefully we will learn from the mistakes. Hopefully we will have a full game in the next match and we’ll take a lead,” he added.
According to stat, Ireland are no match for the Tigers. Of the 14 ODI matches between the two sides, Bangladesh won nine and lost just two while three matches were washed out.
Ireland won the maiden encounter between the two sides in 2007 ODI World Cup in Bridgetown, West Indies but last time they beat Bangladesh in ODI cricket in 2010 at Belfast. They could never put up any resistance in the matches they played against Bangladesh.
Very recently, Bangladesh won the three-match ODI series between the two sides at home by 2-0 and that too breaking several records. They also put up their highest ODI total 349-6 in the second with Mushfiqur Rahim hitting the fastest century by a Bangladeshi player, smashing ton off 60 balls but the match was washed out.
Bangladesh also won the three-match T20 series by 2-1 and beat Ireland in the one-off Test at home.
Line Ups:
Bangladesh: TamimIqbal, Liton Das, RonyTalukdar, NajmulHossain, TowhidHridoy, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Yasir Ali, MehidyHasan, Taijul Islam, EbadotHossain, Shoriful Islam, MustafizurRahman, Hasan Mahmud, MrittunjoyChowdhury.
Ireland: Andy Balbirnie (capt), Mark Adair, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Stephen Doheny, Fionn Hand, Graham Hume, Josh Little, Andy McBrine, Paul Stirling, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Craig Young.
