Mahmudullah sees no problem in 38 dot balls
Image : Cricfrenzy
||CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah said that their game plan against Chahal was to play low-risk game in the second Twenty20 game at Rajkot on Sunday.
Chasing the history to be a first overseas team to beat India in a three-match T20 series on India soil following their seven-wicket victory in first game, Bangladesh made a decent start with opener Liton Das and Mohammad Naim sharing 60 runs in just 7.2 overs.
Liton survived twice in consecutive overs on 17 and 26 when India failed to hold on the chance but he was run out like an apprentice.
Naim started promisingly with three boundaries of Khaleel Ahmed and looked gained the momentum of a big score. A needless slog however against Washington Sundar got the better of him after he struck five fours in his 31 ball-36.
At this phase, when Bangladesh was operating with 8 runs per over, India, desperate to level the series, clawed back into the game thanks to Yuzvandra Chahal who dealt a double strike in 13th over, taking out Mushfiqur Rahim (4) and Soumya Sarkar.
Their batting collapse coupled by superlative batting by Rohit Sharma helped India level the series as they earned an eight-wicket win over the host.
‘’Not dominating on Chahal but if you see that the way Mushi (Mushfiqur Rahim) got out, that is one of his strong shot to score, so I don’t blame him, I don’t blame anyone, it was the momentum of the game that we needed to understand, we could have understood what are the threats that we need to face at that particular time, but we didn’t recognize those things and fell short of those runs,’’ said Mahmudullah.
‘’We know that Chahal is their striking bowler. In the middle overs we didn’t think that if he was a strike bowler or their main bowler. We were thinking how much less risk we can run against him or find a gap. We didn't bat against him with a negative mindset,’’ he said adding that he is not concerned with Liton’s approach.
‘’Liton plays like that all the time. We know he is a very good and talented batsman. Maybe in his day and he carries the match alone. We'll get to that in the next match. Not once and twice, he has been consistently batting well in this format. As a team we expect that he has the ability to play a big innings. And then our run can be increased a bit. Hopefully he can understand his mistakes and make more runs in the next match,’’ he said
Bangladesh had 38 dot balls in their innings but according to the skipper, this is not something to worry about which is ironical.
‘’I think if you have a dot ball more than 40 in a T20, you have less chance of winning the match. We played 38 dot balls there. Maybe that’s okay, but there will definitely be opportunities to improve. However, I pointed out that our batsmen had to take more responsibility today,’’ he said.
‘’The goal was to get a good score but we couldn't do that and it is the failure of our batsmen,’’ he said.
