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Bangladesh is best fielding side in Asia: Shakib


Published : 15 Mar 2023 09:41 PM

The English fielders plunged two catches, as Bangladesh openers had lives and England had to pay for that in the last match of the third T20 on Tuesday at the Sher-e-Bangla national Cricket Stadium.

Though the fielding of the England team were not so sloppy throughout the match but silly mistakes very rare but dropping the two catches were a bit costly when Rony Taluker having life on 18 runs by Rehan scored 24 runs and Litton Das having life on 51 by Ben Buckett finally got out after making 73 runs.   

On the other hands, Bangladesh demonstrated some excellent piece of fielding display, specially, the run out English captain Jos Buttler with a direct throw by Mehedi Hasan Miraz caught sight of all which also the turning point of the match.

Fielding has been the name of concern for Bangladesh for quite some time now, but this series proved anything different, as the Tigers’captain Shakib Al Hasan feels happy watching the impressive fielding of is mates and called Bangladesh team have now the best fielding side in Asia.

Shakib, while talking to the post-match press conference on Tuesday, told the reporters, “Everybody has seen the way we fielded in the three matches. England are such a good fielding team, we fielded better than them. It’s a great improvement of our fielding side and we should keep up this motivation. We have plan to be the best fielding team in Asia. I don’t think we’re far behind and can say, ‘this team may be the best fielding side in Asia’.”

Earlier in the same press meet, England’s head coach Matthew Mott also mentioned the terrific trough from the point by Miraz that directly hit stumps of Butler’s and that turned the match.

However, Shakib said about the over done by Mustafizur Rahman, when two steady batsmen David Mallan and Butler returned in two successive balls. 

Shakib also said that he did never think about winning match before the start.

“No one thought before the start of the series, whether would win the match or anything. We really want to play good cricket. We have tried in all three matches to contribute as much as possible from each position in batting and bowling. We have done excellent fielding in all the three matches. In T20 where 2 runs, 4 runs or 10-15 runs make a big difference, I have given a big tick mark this time.”

Replying to a query Shakib said, “I do not like to compare between series. Winning every match is important but the way we won this series, we haven’t played like this before. The approach is highly satisfactory, the whole team is happy. In fact we started playing this way from the Asia Cup, so it took a bit of time to start getting the right results. But it has started.”  

Bangladesh played this series with comparatively a new team, when Tanvir and Ridoy (debut match) both of them are inexperienced. 

Naturally, youth means extra excitement in fielding. However, Shakib says that the team has a lot of confidence in the players who have performed in domestic cricket even though they are new to the international stage. We have confidence in them.