Bangladesh fold for 70, whimper to series defeat
Bangladesh fold for 70, whimper to series defeat
If Bangladesh's narrow loss in the first ODI kept fans at home awake till the early hours, then their spineless surrender in the second of three ODI against West Indies at the National Cricket Stadium in Grenada last night must have infuriated them and left them fuming till dawn, even though the match halfway across the world ended long before the break of day.
The wait for a win in the year 2014 is still very much alive, and only more pain was heaped on Bangladesh cricket as Mushfiqur Rahim's men suffered their 12th ODI defeat of the year when the home side posted a huge 177–run victory courtesy of the Tigers' all-too-familiar ineptitude with the bat in chase of a gettable target of 248.
Their discipline in defeat in the first game raised hopes that it is just matter of time before Bangladesh bounce back from the prolonged bad patch and the bowlers continued their good showing in the second game by restricting a strong West Indies batting line up for 247 runs, even with Chris Gayle finding his form with a half-century.
The Bangladesh batting, again quite familiarly, spoiled the bowlers' good job.
The approach they showed in the first game was completely missing in the second match on a very similar surface. They looked panicked in the middle as they went from 53 for three to 70 all out in 24.4 overs, the lowest ODI total in Grenada and Bangladesh's second-lowest in ODIs after a pair of 58s against India and West Indies.
A good delivery from Jason Holder sneaked past the bat of first-match centurion Anamul Haque but Imrul Kayes, on a slow wicket, seemed confused about what to do against the short ball from, which resulted in a lethargic pull against Ravi Rampaul to be caught at deep square leg.
Then Shamsur Rahman, who was favoured ahead of Mominul Haque, did not move his feet as he dragged on a a Kemar Roach delivery from two feet outside off stump. And thus Chandika Hathurusinga's strategy of fielding four openers in the top order backfired.
Left-handed opener Tamim Iqbal was the only batsman to reach double digits with 37 runs before Roach got rid of him.
Rampaul and Holder exerted the pressure early on and then Sunil Narine and Roach did the rest by taking three wickets apiece but Bangladesh's mindless batting proved to be West Indies' 12th man and they will do well to see footage of the shots they got out to.
Earlier half-centuries from Chris Gayle and Darren Bravo led the West Indies to 247 for seven, and it could have been much more if not for tight death-overs bowling from Al-Amin Hossain and Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, who bowled a double-wicket maiden in the 49th.
The Tigers can try for a consolation victory in the third and final ODI at St. Kitts on August 25.