Bangladesh seek redemption to stay alive in tri-series

Publish: 7:44 PM, October 8, 2022 | Update: 7:44 PM, October 8, 2022

Bangladesh are keen to show their improvement in a bid to stay alive in the tri-nation T20 series when they take on hosts New Zealand in their second game at Hagley Oval in Christchurch, New Zealand tomorrow (Sunday).

The match which starts at 12noon (BST), will be aired live on T Sports Channel.

The Tigers began their tri-series campaign in disappointing fashion, losing the first game to Pakistan by 21 runs. The defeat was particularly unacceptable, given the fact that they were in control of the match for most part of the innings. Only some mindless batting in the middle overs caused the defeat.

Apart from Mustafizur Rahman, the bowling looked highly potent, giving Bangladesh a ray of hope to fight neck-to-neck with the tri-series opponents despite their vulnerability in the shortest format of the cricket.

Mustafizur’s death over bowling was believed to be instrumental also in Tigers’ defeat. He conceded 48 runs in his four overs, including 29 runs in his last two overs in 17th and 20th over of Bangladesh. In contrast his fellow pacers, Taskin Ahmed and even young Hasan Mahmud gave away less runs than him in 18th and 19th over respectively.

It is believed if Mustafizur could curb his tendency to leak runs in abundance, Pakistan would have been able to score 15/20 runs less than their 167-5.

But still Bangladesh were in the match, thanks to inform Liton Das and Afif Hossain whose 38 ball-50 runs partnership took Bangladesh to 87-2 in 13th over before a sensational batting collapse saw Bangladesh losing four wickets for just 14 runs. The match actually was lost there as they were finally restricted to 146-8.

Nurul Hasan Sohan who led the side in absence of Shakib Al Hasan pointed out this collapse behind their defeat and stressed upon the requirements to plug this loophole against New Zealand in the second match.

“We are disappointed. The wicket was good and the bowlers did well. We need to improve in a few areas though. Wickets in the middle while batting cost us,” Sohan said.

After being rested in the first match, captain Shakib Al Hasan is set to back to lead the side against New Zealand and unarguably his return would be a major boost to the side’s aspiration to hit back into the winning way.

But the history and record against the Kiwis is not in Bangladesh’s favour. The stat showed that Bangladesh won just three matches in 15 encounters against the Black Caps in this format but they lost all of the seven T20 matches they played on New Zealand backyard.

Bangladesh were win-less on New Zealand soil until their historical Test win here in the early of this year. This is the fact that could make them motivated to end their win-draught in T20 cricket here.
Overall Bangladesh played 136 T20 Internationals and while they won 47 matches, they had lost 86 matches. Three other matches ended in no result.

Meanwhile, New Zealand will also be looking to bounce back in the winning way after they suffered a six-wicket defeat to Pakistan in their first game.

Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (captain), Nurul Hasan (vc, wk), Nasum Ahmed, Taskin Ahmed, Yasir Ali, Liton Das (wk), Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Afif Hossain, Ebadot Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain, Hasan Mahmud, Mustafizur Rahman, Sabbir Rahman, Mohammad Saifuddin, Najmul Hossain Shanto.
New Zealand: Kane Williamson (captain), Finn Allen, Martin Guptill, Mark Champman, Dane Cleaver, Michael Bracewell, Devon Conway, Glenn Phillips, James Neesham, Ish Sodhi, Blair Tickner, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Adam Milne.