Soumya-Mushfiq's excellence overshadowed by bowling deficiency
Sri Lanka tour of Bangladesh – a series that was supposed to
turn things around for the hosting nation after a humiliating campaign in South
Africa in 2017. The Lankans with a new head coach, and the Tigers without any
head coach went into the tournament as Chnadika Hathurusingha left the latter
to join Sri Lanka.
Starting with the tri-nation series that involved Zimbabwe
along with the aforementioned teams, Sri Lanka’s tour turned out to be a
nightmare as they lost the first two matches to each of Bangladesh and
Zimbabwe.
Before that tournament, Bangladeshi media were busy creating
theories of how Chandika Hathurusingha, the most successful coach in Bangladesh’s
history of cricket, knows the strengths and weaknesses of the Tigers.
With a 163-run victory over the island nation, the men led
by Mashrafe showed great character in avoiding all the gossips around the
dressing room, but the darkest hour for Bangladesh came as Sri Lanka mounted a
comeback against them after thrashing Zimbabwe.
Sri Lanka stormed into the final by restricting Bangladesh to
82 runs and winning the encounter by 10 wickets. And with that triumph, Sri Lanka became
unbeatable against the Tigers.
Bangladesh were handed another 79-run defeat in the
tri-series final and lost a Test series in their own backyard after nearly
three years. Although the first Test of the 2-match series was drawn,
Bangladesh did not stand a chance against the clinical opponents in the second
game.
Another defeat found its way to the hosts in the 1st
match of a two-T20I series. A run-galore at Mirpur ended in a six-wicket win
for Sri Lanka as Bangladesh failed to defend a daunting total of 193 runs.
Mustafizur Rahman’s bowling figures were shocking as the
fast-bowler failed to bag any wicket while conceding 32 runs at an economy rate
of 10.67, the highest in his career until now. His bowling figures of 4-0-40-0
against India in the Asia Cup in 2016, stands 2nd in terms of
economy rate.
Despite going through a bad phase, Bangladesh found some
positives in the squad in T20Is as Soumya Sarkar maintained his consistency in T20Is by
smashing a quick-fire half-century on Thursday. The innings of the ‘emerging
T20-specialist batsman’ was followed by another fine knock of 66 runs from
Mushfiqur Rahim.
Soumya Sarkar clubbed a total of 299 runs in the first
twenty T20I-innings and exhibited a great deal of merit to amass 285 runs in
the next seven innings at an average of 41.
Mushfiqur Rahim, despite being a crucial part of the Bangladeshi
batting-order, failed to impress with the bat in the shortest format of
international cricket and needed to capitalize on his resurgence. The
right-handed batsman successfully did what was required and picked up a
half-century after 26 innings in the match on February 15.
Before the game against Sri Lanka, his best score in the
last 21 innings was 26 runs. The keeper-batsman will now look forward to
continuing his game in the same manner to take Bangladesh to a better position
in the T20I rankings.
Besides, debutante Nazmul Islam Apu picked up 2 wickets with
his economical bowling while allowing only 25 runs in the same match. However, Bangladesh
will need better contributions in all departments if they want to confirm a
share of the spoils in the T20I series. The two teams will face-off each other on Sunday in Sylhet.
