Bangladesh suffered a seven-wicket defeat to India in their fourth match in the ongoing ICC men’s Cricket World Cup on Thursday and now rest of the five outings turned for them to maintain the formality.
After suffering embarrassing defeats in the previous two successive matches, it was expected Tigers would give a good fight against the men in Blue but this time not openers, but the debacle of middle order disappointed all. It was very much predictable that India would win the match against Bangladesh but the way they conceded the defeat was unexpected when the hosts chased the target (257) 8.3 overs left to play with seven wickets in hands. There was so much talking and criticism with the opening pair of Bangladesh, who could not pile up a solid foundation, as rest of the batters would capitalise that.
But on Thursday against India, the opening stand despite scoring a fabulous 93 runs by 14.4 overs with the run rate more than six, middle order batters could not make proper utilize the impressive support from the opening stand, as only 44 runs came from next 13 overs at the cost of four wickets including the other opener Litton Das.
After the opening stand being departed with Tanzid was being trapped lbw by Kuldeep Yadav for 51 off 43 balls, the top middle order collapsed very cheaply when Bangladesh lost four big wickets for 44 runs by 13 overs.
The in-form batter Nazmul Hossain Shanto and the captain on the day failed miserably coming as one down batter, he struggled much to score only eight runs from 17 deliveries before being trapped lbw by Ravindra Jadeja, Mehidy Miraz (3 off 13 balls) and Towhid Hirody (16 off 35 balls).
Litton Das, the opener though was the highest scorer for the team but looked a bit stressed, as he was out when looked as a set batsman with scoring 66 runs from 88 deliveries.
When it was a great concern with the openers, who have been failing for a long time, as the coach Hathurusingha also openly expressed his worriedness, Litton Das accompanied by the young opening partner gave a huge relief scoring almost 100 (93) runs in the opening stand.
But, all the middle order batters almost fully failed to score a challenging total when only 27 runs came from three big players, as Shanto, Mehidy Miraz and Hirody awfully disappointed with their bats.
Among the middle order batters, only Mahmudullah Riyad showed some confidence with trying his best to do something bigger but he had no trustworthy accompany from the other end, when the most reliable batter Mushfiqur Rahim could not give accompany for a long, as he got out after scoring 36 from 46 balls.
Mahmudullah got out after scoring 46 off 36 balls, lack of any responsible support after Mushfique getting out. Mahmudullah failed to make his innings bigger, as he was out in the 49.2 overs as the last batter just four runs short of his 50.
Now, it is almost clear that not only the openers but full batting line up is a great concern for the Tigers.
