Desk Report:
Bangladesh’s path to the Asia Cup Super Four has become difficult after losing to Sri Lanka by 6 wickets in Abu Dhabi. Bangladesh is now third in the points table. Although they have 2 points equal to Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Bangladesh’s net run rate (0.650) is lower than that of Sri Lanka (2.595) and Afghanistan (4.700).
Zaker Ali, who played an unbeaten 41 off 34 balls against Sri Lanka in a terrible batting disaster, said in the post-match press conference that they are still hopeful of becoming champions, ‘There is no question of giving up hope. We will play to win. We will have the same mentality. We came with a winning mentality in this match too, but it didn’t happen. We will go into the next match with a winning mentality as well. We didn’t come to the tournament just to play matches, we came to become champions. You can’t lose hope by losing one match.’
Bangladesh‘s start to the tournament was a forgettable one, batting first after losing the toss against Sri Lanka. Despite the Sri Lankan fielders missing a couple of opportunities, Bangladesh managed to score 30 runs for 3 wickets in the first 6 overs. The run rate is 5, while in today’s T20s, 20 runs are being scored in the power play! Bangladesh scored 53 runs before the end of 10 overs against the Sri Lankans, but lost 5 wickets. In the remaining 10 overs, they scored 85 runs at a rate of 8.5 runs, courtesy of Zaker Ali and Shamim Patwary’s unbroken sixth wicket partnership of 86 runs off 61 balls.
Zaker has brought up the desert wind behind the collapse of the top order, ‘Because it was hot. The wind is a fact. On this field, two sides do not die. You have to play on the ground on one side. The top order is blamed more. They bowled well. We did not do well as a batting unit.’
