Mahmudullah urges cameo innings from batters
AFP
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Bangladesh T20 skipper Mahmudullah Riyad on Wednesday said he needs batters to play cameo innings which will help bowlers to defend a 160-170 total.
West Indies lead the series 1-0 following the no-result in the rain-ruined opening fixture in Dominica.
An unbeaten 68 from Test captain Shakib Al Hasan helped Bangladesh to get close to 160 (158/6) as they were chasing 194 runs in the second T20I. Afif Hossain, who also played a decent innings of 34 off 27 and companied Shakib for a good period of time.
“I think that T20 cricket is such a format where sometimes the openers would be successful and give a good start and often the middle order may not be able to steer the innings but someone has to take the responsibility, like how Shakib batted in the previous game where we went close to 160,” Mahmudullah said in Guyana ahead of the third and final T20I.
“I think we need batters to play cameo knocks, of 15 to 20 to 30 runs, as well so that we consistently reach 160-170. If we can do that, we have the belief that our bowlers would be able to defend the score,”
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Mahmudullah has huge faith in his bowlers despite not having performed as expected in the last game but he believes his bowlers can win matches.
“I still consider our bowling attack to be really good. Sure, the pacers may not have performed as expected in the latest game, but if you look into the previous matches you'd see the bowlers have managed to achieve the small targets and restricted the opponents' batters. I still have huge faith in my bowling attack,” he added.
One of the biggest problems of the Bangladesh T20 team is the opening pair. For the last few years, runs have not been coming consistently from the openers.
Anamul Haque Bijoy and Munim Shahriar have been selected in the squad for this series to overcome the opening problem. But in the first match of the series, they could not change the scenario. The picture was the same with Litton Das and Bijoy as Munim was dropped from the XI.
However, Mahmudullah is not worried about this. Instead, he wants to give the openers at least 3-4 match opportunities.
“I'm not seeing this [issue] as a big area of concern. As a team management, we want to give proper opportunity to a player, at least for three to four matches. As a result, that player will trust the decision of the team management and have the reinforced belief to utilise the window of opportunity given”
