T20 World Cup 2021 | Our batting is a concern, we need to bat better, admits Mahmudullah

T20 World Cup 2021 | Our batting is a concern, we need to bat better, admits Mahmudullah

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Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah says the team needs to improve their batting

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Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah admits that the team's batting performances are a concern and they need to bat better in the upcoming matches. Mahmudullah’s comments came after Bangladesh's six-run loss against Scotland as they were restricted to 134/9 while chasing a meagre target of 141.

Bangladesh won the toss and elected to field first. Scotland had a horrible start as they lost six wickets for 53 runs. Chris Greaves and Mark Watt stitched a partnership of 51 runs for the seventh wicket. Greaves scored 45 runs off 28 balls with four boundaries and two sixes, while Scotland ended the innings with 140/9 on the board. Mehidy Hasan took three wickets for 19 runs for Bangladesh.

In reply, Bangladesh also had a terrible start as they lost both the openers inside four overs when the scorecard read 18/2. Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim stitched a partnership of 47 runs for the third wicket before Shakib got out to a brilliant catch taken on the boundary by Calum MacLeod. Rahim followed soon as he was clean bowled by Greaves. Skipper Mahmudullah tried alongside the explosive innings from Afif Hussain (18 runs off 12 balls) and Mehidy Hasan (13 runs off 5 balls) but it wasn’t enough as they lost by six runs. 

"I am very much frustrated. Our batting is a concern. We have to bat better. We have to play aggressive cricket, regardless of the situation. We have a deep batting line-up, with Mohammad Saifuddin at No. 9. We may need to think over some changes tomorrow.

"We didn't deliberately bat slowly. We couldn't hit those boundaries. We have to bat better next time. A lot of things will come up since we lost the game. I think we didn't play well today, but we are a good T20 team. We have the capability. When we play our best cricket, we can win games," Mahmudullah said.

Mahmudullah added that the team kept losing wickets in the middle overs which is why they couldn’t take advantage of the spin bowlers. 

"We couldn't make runs in the Powerplay. You need to start well chasing 140. I think Mushfiqur and Shakib [Al Hasan] made some recovery but in the middle , we didn't bat well even though it was on a good wicket. We made more mistakes.

"I think some big overs off the spinners would have raised our run rate, but probably losing wickets in the middle overs prevented us from getting those big overs. The asking run-rate, as a result, went up."

The 35-year-old further added that Mushfiqur Rahim’s wicket was a turning point of the game. 

"I think Mushy's wicket was the turning point," he said. "He was batting well today. A set batter has to stay. Maybe I didn't bat according to the situation. We should think better as a batting unit.

"If Afif and I, or Sohan and I could have carried a little longer, it would have brought us closer. But credit goes to their bowlers. They executed well. We made silly mistakes, and paid for it."

Mahmudullah concluded by praising the bowling for picking up six early wickets even though they leaked 85 runs in the last eight overs.

"I think the bowlers were on the right track. We had them at 53 for 6, but then they had a good partnership. They played better cricket than us. We were just not good enough tonight. Mahedi and Shakib bowled very well. Maybe we could have bowled better in the death overs, but our batting was really bad. If we don't take stock of it, it won't get us anything good," Mahmudullah concluded.

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