Bangladesh national cricket team have been going through a tough time for a long, specially, in T-20 format their dubious performances are being strictly criticized from different quarters.
Ahead of the three-nation competition and the ICC T-20 Cricket World Cup, Bangladesh though managed a seven-run win against the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it’s not at all a big inspiration for a ‘bigwig’ Tigers comparing their cricket status with UAE.
The tour of UAE for two-match might be considered as tuning-up the team’s combinations before the tri-nation tournament involving New Zealand, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
But the result of first match was not at all pleasing and if the Tigers will struggle in the second match as well, it would be very much alarming for the upcoming tournament and the World Cup.
The team management might be taking the series as a dress-rehearsal to watch the performers how they play their rolls before the World Cup stage, but the outcome from the first math or the trial match of the series obviously not anything impressive.
The struggling seven-run win against the minnows UAE is visibly an awake up call ahead of the Tri-series and World Cup when both the batters and the bowlers could not dominate over the underdogs, being the favourites.
If we have a look on the scorecard of the first match, both the teams were in win-win situation, even at the last stage the UAE were in the driving seat to overwhelm the Tigers when they needed only 11 runs from last over.
In the T-20 cricket, 11 runs from last over and eight runs from last two balls, specially, when it turns into ‘do or die’ situation is very much possible.
But, UAE failed to score the winning runs, just lack of experiences otherwise the Tigers would have a bitter experience with going down to an associate member of ICC.
The team, searching for a solid opening pair, Sabbir Rahman and Mehdy Hassan Miraz could not prove their mettle when the regular opener Liton Das backfire as a one down batter.
Out of the seven batters, who had the opportunity to bat, only two of them were notable scorer with Afif Hossain 77 and Nurul Hassan 35 to steer the team to make a challenging total.
For last one year Tigers are suffering from a good opening pair when the middle order batters also have no consistency.
Meanwhile, bowlers also can’t appear with threats when pacers are failing to execute their plans to bowl with perfect line and length, as Mustafiz’s weapons (cutter) are not also sharp.
Only spinners are doing better but if Tigers will not able to fire from all cylinders it would be tough win matches. Besides batting and bowling, fielding sides are also very feeble.
Actually, the result of the two-match series is a pre-caution for the Tigers for next big assignments when it is only 27 days left for them to start the World Cup.