Bangladesh must rethink their approach after suffering another humiliating series defeat, this time against Afghanistan, losing the series-deciding third one-day international by five wickets at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Monday.
The Tigers failed to defend 244 runs after a brilliant hundred from Rahmanullah Gurbaz (101 off 120 balls) and a 70* off 77 from Azmatullah Omarzai took Afghanistan home to clinch their third series win in a row.聽
Mehidy Hasan Miraz, the stand-in captain for Bangladesh, credited Gurbaz and Omarzai but also claimed that dew made it easy for the Afghan batters to chase down the target with 10 balls to spare.聽
Later, coach Phil Simmons mentioned the lack of taking wickets when their 100-run partnership was brewing as one of the reasons for the defeat.聽
It was probably the easiest wicket to bat on among the three games, as Simmons called it 鈥榦ne of the greatest wickets in Sharjah in a long time.鈥櫬�
That points toward Bangladesh鈥檚 batting approach.
There were two hundred partnerships in the third ODI, each from the two teams.聽
Mahmudullah and Mehidy added 145 runs for the fifth wicket, while Gurbaz and Omarzai put on exactly 100 runs for the fourth wicket.聽
A collapse between the ninth and 15 overs, Bangladesh lost four wickets, forcing Mahmudullah and Mehidy to be cautious, particularly the stand-in skipper.
His strike rate of 55.46 is the lowest among the fifty-innings of Bangladeshi batters in 13 years.聽But Simmons defended the approach.聽
鈥榃hile Miraz seemed to be slow, Mahmudullah was scoring really well at the other time. Partnerships are like that sometimes,鈥� said Simmons after the match.
Mehidy hit only four boundaries during his innings. Among these, he smashed two in the 46th over while attempting to up the tempo of the game.聽
Mahmudullah hit a brilliant run-a-ball 98; in fact, his strike rate of 100 is the highest among those who made fifties in the third ODI.
However, as his landmark approached, the other hitters appeared to have focused on rotating the strike rather than trying to hit some runs themselves.
Jaker Ali, who lifted Bangladesh in the second ODI by scoring 37 off 27, made only one from two balls.聽
Nasum Ahmed scored five off six. Bangladesh only managed to score 27 off the last four overs despite going into the last four with five wickets in hand.聽
Mahmudullah was cramping throughout his innings; in that sense, his efforts were admirable. But others could have taken up the responsibility.聽
Mehidy mentioned that they failed to take wickets in middle overs. But they took three wickets during the second powerplay (11-40 overs), one more than Afghanistan.
But the batting in the death made a huge difference as Nabi took some responsibility on his shoulder while partnering with Omarzai.聽
Bangladesh will play one more ODI series, which is against the West Indies, before the Champions Trophy in February next year.聽
As the 50-over format scheduling goes nowadays, they need to rethink their approaches and get it right quickly if they want to make a mark in that tournament.聽
Teams like Afghanistan are moving fast; Bangladesh need to cope.
