Nazmul's place under the scanner

Bangladesh skipper Nigar Sultana Joty jested saying she wasn't looking forward to any more Super Overs after Bangladesh pulled off a series-saving win in the second ODI of the three-match series against Pakistan at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur yesterday.

Nigar and Co clinched the match in a Super Over thriller where they chased down eight, with the skipper hitting the winning runs with a lofted drive down the ground when Bangladesh needed two runs off the final delivery bowled by left-arm spinner Nashra Sandhu. The win kept the series alive at 1-1, with the finale scheduled to take place on Thursday at the same venue.

"I think this is a very big experience, a learning one. This might happen to us at a stage like the World Cup. So, we would know how to respond to such situations by trying, learning, and playing. But I don't want any more Super Overs," Joty told reporters in the post-match press conference yesterday.

Player-of-the-match Nigar helped her side post 169 for nine in 50 overs with a 104-ball 54. She was in the thick of things on the field as well, completing two stumpings and a couple of run-outs.

"I saw the field setup first. I play the slog-sweep quite well. When I saw that square-leg was up, I was thinking whether to go over or not," the captain said while explaining her thought process during the crunch moments.

"Then my thoughts were about hitting straight, anywhere down the ground because the fielders were placed wide. I really like to loft the ball and when I saw that mid-off was up, I just went for it. It was a gamble as I couldn't connect well in the previous 50 overs. When I saw the fielder was up, I just played straight," she added.

Pakistan openers Sadaf Shamas and Sidra Ameen gave their side a steady start with a 41-run stand before off-spinner Nishita Akter Nishi and leggie Fahima Khatun got rid of them.

One of the three leg-spinners in Bangladesh's rank, Rabeya Khan took out three of Pakistan's first five batters, including skipper Nida Dar, who top-scored with a 47-ball 27, to bundle out the visitors for 169 with one ball to spare, taking the match to a Super Over contest.

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha acknowledged the arduous challenge of facing the Afghanistan bowling attack but pointed out that the familiarity of facing the Afghans in recent encounters will help the Tigers' cause. 

Bangladesh take on Afghanistan in Lahore on Sunday in their second and final group-stage fixture of the Asia Cup in a must-win contest in order to stay in contention for qualification to the second round.

The Tigers got their Asia Cup campaign off to a dismal start as they succumbed to a five-wicket loss against Sri Lanka on Thursday. 

"This game is very important because of what happened in the last game against Sri Lanka. We know that it's a must-win game. We certainly didn't play to our potential in the last game and we didn't represent ourselves well enough but we are confident that we will bring our A-game against Afghanistan tomorrow," Hathurusingha told the reporters on Saturday.

Hathurusingha deemed the Afghanistan bowling attack as one of the best in the world as he singled out two of the spinners, expectedly Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman, as being world-class.

"The Afghanistan bowling attack is one of the best in the world. It's definitely a challenge but we have played them recently and our players had some success. So it all depends on how you perform on the day. We are very much aware of the challenges that we have to face.

"As I said before, they have one of the best bowling attacks in world cricket, especially in limited-over cricket. They got two world-class spinners and decent seamers. We are well aware of their threat because we played them recently in T20Is and ODIs," he said.

Sarfraz Ahmed, the Pakistan captain, took the blame for his team's poor show at the Asia Cup, but said that there's time to rebuild the team for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.

A convincing eight-wicket win over Hong Kong in the tournament opener suggested Pakistan were going to be a force. But it was followed by an eight-wicket defeat to India, and then, following a last-over win over Afghanistan in the Super Fours, losses to India and Bangladesh. As a result, Pakistan crashed out of the tournament they have won twice in the past.

"Yes, our performance was very poor. Our batting wasn't good, and we dropped a lot of catches. Our bowling was also patchy, and that's the reason we are out of the tournament," accepted Ahmed, who had a poor run with the bat himself, scoring 68 runs in four innings.

"I still believe we have a lot of talented players in the team. Look at Fakhar Zaman. Though he didn't have a good tournament, we have to back him. Babar Azam too. Imam has, thankfully, done well, but there's also Shadab and Hasan. We have to back them and take them along with us. We have to look at our bench too. We have a pool of players, and by the time the World Cup comes, we'll have a good team," said Ahmed.

"The World Cup is quite some time away, we have other engagements before that. Australia are coming, and then there's New Zealand. So we have to review our performance and see where we are falling short.

"We are losing too many wickets early, and the middle order has had to deal with the new ball, which isn't easy, and hitting quickly in the end isn't easy on these pitches. We'll have to get together and fix these issues."

While Ahmed called the performance 'alarming', he added, "There's no need to press the panic button. Yes, we have made mistakes as a team, and as a captain, I know that I didn't do well. But no need to panic, we need to back the players, look at the positions and see if there are people outside the team who can come in."

Bangladesh clinched the two-match T20I series against Afghanistan with a six-wicket win (by DLS method) in the second T20I at The Sylhet International Cricket Stadium on Sunday. 

Before this series, Bangladesh and Afghanistan had played two bilateral series in the format, with Rashid Khan and Co. winning one and the other one ending in a draw.

The Tigers chased down the 117-run target as skipper Shakib Al Hasan guided his side to victory with an 11–ball 18-run knock, while Shamim Hossain hit the winning runs with five balls remaining. 

The hosts got off to a flying as openers Liton Das and Afif Hossain put up a 67-run stand but Afghanistan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman struck twice in the 10th over to bring back the visitors into the contest. 

In the following over, Najmul Hossain Shanto, who scored a six-ball four, played all over a full and straight delivery off pacer Azmatullah Omarzai.

This reduced the Tigers to 76 for the loss of three after 11 overs.

Mujeeb came on and sent back Liton, who managed to score 35 runs off 36 balls, with the first delivery of the 10th over, courtesy of a stunning catch at covers from Afghanistan skipper Rashid Khan, and Afif's 20-ball 24 came to an end as was caught at deep-midwicket while trying to slog-sweep on the third delivery of the over.

After scoring 50 runs in the first five overs, Bangladesh could only manage 20 runs in the next five which caused the potentially straight-forward chase to become interesting at the latter stage.
 

Against Pakistan, Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan posted his highest score in the ongoing World Cup, which only highlighted how far the all-rounder has fallen from the incredible form with the bat he enjoyed in the previous edition of the competition.

The tournament he had in 2019 is the kind any player would dream of having at least once in cricket's most coveted event.

Nothing about Shakib's incredible run in the England World Cup was a fluke. He batted at number three in that edition, specifically asking the team management to let him bat at that elevated position and came into the tournament having done his homework.

Despite many of his team mates' struggles during the tournament, Shakib appeared to be in a zone of his own, scoring 606 runs at the tournament at an average of over 86 with two tons and five fifties.

This World Cup has been a far cry from his performances in 2019. So far, Shakib has scored just 104 runs in six innings at an average of just 17.33.

The difference in form is also apparent from the way he has been playing the short balls in this edition compared to the one four years back.

In 2019, he was getting well on top of the bouncers and looked mostly in control against them. But this year, he has gotten out to rising deliveries multiple times.

Yesterday at Kolkata's Eden Garden, Shakib came in at number six following the 79-run stand between Liton Das and Mahmudullah Riyad, the latter pushed further up the order due to his consistency.

Bangladesh needed another partnership to build on from the previous one and then kick on in the final overs.

But Shakib was too cautious and he seemingly couldn't find a way to rotate the strike as it took nine deliveries to open his account.

He scored 20 off his first 44 deliveries and while Mahmudullah had reached his fifty at a brisk pace, Shakib's confidence level appeared to be at the opposite spectrum.

"Of course the match situation was such that if he had gotten out then, the match would go out of hand since there was a chance to get at least 250," Nazmul Abedeen Fahim, who worked with Shakib when the all-rounder came to Bangladesh mid-tournament , told The Daily Star yesterday

"It was noticeable that he was very aware of his form. He seemed low on confidence. Maybe he wanted to see the ball better but usually it [head position] isn't like that," he added.

Shakib grinded at the middle for 64 balls, scoring 43 runs thanks to the hat-trick of boundaries he hit against Iftikhar Ahmed in the 37th over.

But right as it seemed Shakib was returning to his old self, he fell to a short delivery, trying to hook Haris Rauf.

Against the pacer, there was a noticeable change in his stance as he was facing towards mid-on, which is unusual for him.

Fahim feels that the weight of captaincy may be weighing down on Shakib and hurting his batting.

"Captaincy is always a headache since you don't get time to think about your own game, you think about the team's plans.

"When he faces a problem, he overcomes it quite quickly and gets out of the patch. This time it hasn't happened," Fahim said.