||CF Correspondent||

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza said wrong shot selection led their crushing defeat in the first ODI against New Zealand but he refused to give up in the wake of the big defeat in a country where they are yet to win any match in any format of the cricket.

More than half of the batting line up of Bangladesh was removed even before they crossed the 100 runs mark after they opted to bat first. It was Mohammad Mithun and Saifuddin that saved Bangladesh from ultimate blushes as they shared Bangladesh’s eight-wicket highest 84-run partnership to help the side post 232 before being all out.

New Zealand, led by opener Martin Guptill’s unbeaten 117 runs overhauled the target quite comfortably with 33 balls to spare losing just two wickets, hinting what is stored for Bangladesh in the rest of the series.

The eight-wicket in a Bangladesh-like condition in Napier was not a good news indeed. Nevertheless Bangladesh ODI captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza called for patience, stating that they shouldn’t be panicked in the wake of that crushing defeat.

“Losing wickets in a cluster initially cost us the game. I think we played the wrong shots at the wrong time. There was swing initially which couldn’t counter. It’s imperative not to lose wickets in the first 10 overs, what we couldn’t do. To me, it’s the big reason of our defeat,” Mashrafe said on Wednesday.

Mashrafe said that his side needs at least one week to get used to the condition but further refrained him from making excuses.

“We struggled with the bat and we lost too many wickets at the start. We actually need (at least) a week to get used to the conditions but I don’t want to give excuses.”

Mashrafe’s concern was with the batting in which they lost too many wickets at the start, failing to deal with the short balls of Matt Henry and Trent Boult. The short ball stuffs are the thing that Bangladeshi batsmen hardly could deal properly in their history but they knew that it would be the main weapon that the Kiwi bowlers will use throughout the series.

Mashrafe, a member of the Parliament also, said they need to fix this short ball issue as early as possible should they want to bring up their maiden victory in this country. “We need to work on our batting. We knew they would use the short ball stuffs, so we should be patient initially. If we can stay in the crease for some overs and not lose many wickets initially, we can then pace our innings,” he added.