PAK vs BAN | Expected a little bit more from the wicket, reveals Mahmudullah Riyad

Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah Riyad voiced his concern over the state of the pitch in the series opener, stating that he felt that the pitch was slow and hindered batsmen to get going from the word go, which led to the visitors to fall short by 10-15 runs.

"I expected a little bit better from the wicket because once the ball got older, we found it difficult to score runs. The ball did not come on to the bat as we expected," Mahmudullah was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz. "It was difficult for the later batters to come and hit straight away. Once the ball got old, it was difficult to bat. The ball was holding on the wicket and the batsmen struggled to get underneath. We were short by a good 10-15 runs."

"I believe the way we batted in the powerplay was spot on. Tamim and Naim batted quite well. But as the ball kept losing its shine, it was getting difficult. In the middle overs, we lost two wickets in an over, that too of a set batsman. From that point onwards, if we were to drag the run-rate higher, we would have needed some big overs which yielded some 15-17 runs.