The top-order for Bangladesh is a concern, according to head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, who urged patience with the new-look opening pair on Tuesday.
Since Tamim Iqbal was unable to play in the World Cup, Bangladesh has chosen Litton Kumar Das and Tanzid Hasan Tamim to open the innings. However, the opening pair has struggled thus far, adding just 19 runs against Afghanistan and 14 runs against England. In Dharamsala, where they were competing with six bowlers in the Starting XI, it hurt the team even more.
“You won’t win many games if you don’t get off to a good start or if you lose more than three wickets early in the Powerplay. Thus, there is cause for concern. We must do this because we want our top-order to perform well when we also play seven batters. Therefore, that’s a major concern,” Hathurusingha said to reporters after the game on Tuesday in Dharamsala.
“It is concerning that we haven’t been scoring (as an opening pair), but Litton’s resurgence in this game was a good sign for us, and Tanzim was in good form after scoring runs in both of the practice games. Thus, there were two mistakes. Any team could experience it during the World Cup. As a result, I’m hoping that those two will square off since the majority of batters have now reached peak form. And hopefully we’ll perform as a team in the upcoming games,” he said, adding that they should be patient with Tanzid.
“You’re right, Tanzid managed to escape twice. However, he participated in the two exhibition games’ runs. He recently started playing international cricket. Malan would not be participating in this game if you judged someone based on their first two innings. Thus, we must exercise patience,’ he said.
Hathurusingha continued by expressing his disappointment with the bowling unit’s performance against England, which fell short of expectations. The bowlers must comprehend how to carry out their strategies in the middle, he continued.
“The wicket had something, so I don’t think we erred by bowling first. Additionally, the start time is 10:30, and yesterday there was some rain. Something was on the wicket, according to Hathurusingha.
We had poor lengths and lines, and we did not bowl well in any areas. We weren’t too happy with how things got off to a start. Even in the first 10 overs, we could have bowled a little bit more onto the stumps. We returned safely. I thought it was particularly brave of Shoriful to bowl those variations when we were really under pressure. They eventually would have received 400, I believe. Although we didn’t bowl well, there are some positives, he said.
“In the powerplay in the last two games, the fast bowlers were unusually out of sorts. Typically, there is something for the fast bowlers early on in a day game. Even in this game, there was some early seam movement that was a bit clumsy and two-paced. They were a little bit fortunate, two openers were playing and missing, and there were mishits. They batted exceptionally well after that. Therefore, the narrative would have been different if we had some early wickets, he said.
“Bowling at the stumps was the plan, not bowling outside of them. I believe that the execution failed us. this particular game. With the aid of the spinners, we returned later in the previous game. The result of this game was that good, intelligent batting prevented our spinners from rescuing us, he said.