Mahmudullah fills Shakib's king-size hole
Image : BCB
||CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh Twenty20 skipper Mahmudullah led by example to showcase his talent as a captain’s material and fill the place Shakib Al Hasan in the first T20 match against India at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday.
Mahmudullah handled the bowlers brilliantly that helped the tourist restrict the opponent to 148-6 and later on the back of a solid batting performance they earned a seven-wicket win where he struck the winning six and scored an unbeaten 15 off seven balls.
India was without their regular captain Virat Kohli as he was rested but still the batting line up formidable one. To restrict this line up to just 148-6 was credible effort from the bowlers and here Mahmudullah ticked all boxes correctly.
The way he rotated his bowlers and brought out the best of them paved the platform of Bangladesh’s first T20 victory against India in ninth attempt. And it was also their first victory in any format of cricket against the might neighbors at their home soil also. What made the victory more pleasing was that it was the 1000 T20 Intentional matches in history.
‘’His captaincy was excellent today,” said Bangladesh’s match-winner Mushfiqur Rahim, who is also the brother-in-law of Mahmudullah.
“He shrewdly used the bowlers. And his change of bowling was tremendous. He knows well when he should chance the bowlers and when a spinner will be effective.”
Mahmudullah used as many as eight bowlers and it was the only second time in Bangladesh’s T20 history that they used such a number of bowlers. But it was planned strategy as Mahmudullah didn’t want the Indian batsmen to settle nicely in the crease.
To bowlers credit, they bowled according to the plan. Bangladesh formed the XI, leaving out any left arm spinners, which was quite unusual since the left arm spinners were considered Bangladesh’s main strength.
But Mahmudullah dared to take this punt as he knew that Indian batsmen were quite comfortable to deal with the left-arm spinners. Moreover there was no Shakib who was banned by ICC just ahead of the series due to breach the code of conduct as he failed to report corrupt approached to him by the bookies.
Shakib’s ban that was preceded by players’ strike against BCB left the cricket in a tumultuous situation just ahead of the tour. Mahmudullah was given the captaincy of T20 format in such a moment when the country’s cricket was going through a worst phase.
So it was a challenging task for the captain to regroup the team and made them focused onto cricket only, shrugging off all the off-the-field scuffle and he did the job like a thorough professional, though he gave credit to his teammates for this historic win.
“I think it was all based on how we start but the bowlers did a great job, everyone chipped one,” he said after the match.
“I think captaincy was made easy because of the guys performing well. I think Mushfiqur deserves the credit, especially he and Soumya. Naim too batted well on debut, giving us the start we needed,’’ he concluded.
