Let the emotional override subside

Sparkling 50s from skipper Babar Azam and Mohammad Hafeez take Pakistan to a thumping nine-wicket win over Bangladesh at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Having won the first T20I on Friday by five wickets, today's win gives Pakistan an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. 

1.4 - Wicket! Shafiul Islam provides the early breakthrough once again. Rookie Pakistan opener Ahsan Ali tries to hit a length ball over the top and top edges it to Mahmudullah Riyad at mid off. Ahsan Ali c Mahmudullah b Shafiul 0 (7b) FOW 6/1

Bangladesh limp to 136 for 6

A weak batting display takes Bangladesh to 136 for six in the second T20I against Pakistan -- the second-lowest T20I score at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. 

19.1 - Wicket! Skipper Mahmudullah Riyad tries a hoick and misses, furniture disturbed. Mahmudullah b Haris Rauf 12 (12b, 1x4)

17.4 - Wicket! And it won't be a meaningful innings from Tamim as he is run out for the second time in as many matches. Hits to cover and is run out going for a single at the non-striker's end. He did not put in a dive and actually slowed down, lazy running. Having taken up so many deliveries, Tamim needed to do better than that. Tamim Iqbal run out 65 (53b, 7x4, 1x6) FOW 117/5

15.4 - Four! Tamim pulls Shadab Khan to deep midwicket. Three boundaries in the over that ends up costing 14. 100 up for Bangladesh.

15.3 - Four! Tamim punishes a waist-high (may have been over waist height) full toss over short third man. 

15.1 - Four and Tamim's 50! Tamim hits Shadab Khan through cover for four to bring up his 50 off 43 balls. Given his slow batting, he will have to hit many more of those to make his contribution meaningful. 

14.4 - Wicket! The slow progress forces Afif Hossain's hand, as he tries to hit Mohammad Hasnain over the off side but finds the hands of third man. Afif Hossain c Haris Rauf b Mohammad Hasnain 21 (20b, 1x4, 1x6) FOW 86/4

After 12 overs Bangladesh reach 74 for three -- the first time in the innings that the run rate has gone above six.

11.4 - Six! Tamim comes down the wicket to part-time off-spinner Iftikhar Ahmed and hits a six straight back over the bowler's head. 

9.5 - Six! That's gone the other way. A powerful slog sweep over deep midwicket. Some urgency at last from Bangladesh. 

9.4 - Four! Afif Hossain reverse sweeps Shadab Khan behind point. Much-needed boundary.

7.5 - Wicket! Liton Das may consider himself just slightly unlucky as he reviews this leg-before decision and the decision stands because the ball was shown to be just shaving leg stump. A length ball from leg-spinner Shadab Khan pitched on middle and length and did not turn much, Liton missed a sweep. Bangladesh keep their review as the original umpire's decision made the difference, but that won't be of much consolation to Liton. Liton Das lbw b Shadab 8 (14b, 1x4)

6.6 - Four! The first sign that Tamim once used to be a dashing batsman as he unleashes a powerful cover drive off Hasnain for four. 

5.4 - Four! Liton Das plays a sumptuous back foot punch past point off Haris Rauf. 

4.5 - Dropped! Tamim Iqbal, on 15, enjoys some luck as keeper Mohammad Rizwan drops a difficult chance off an incise edge diving to his right. Was a wonderful delivery from Hasnain, cut back into the left-hander from over the wicket and cut Tamim in half.

4.2 - Wicket! Mohammad Hasnain ends Mahedi's time at the crease with a sharp bouncer that the right-hander tried to hook, but only succeeded in top-edging to the keeper. Mahedi Hasan c Mohammad Rizwan b Mohammad Hasnain 9 (12b, 1x6) FOW 22/2

This wicket seems to be much better than the slow surface on which the teams played the first T20I, so a total in excess of 160 would be needed for Bangladesh. 

2.5 - Four! Tamim makes it a good over for Bangladesh by sweeping Imad Wasim for a four between square leg and fine leg. 12 runs off the over and Bangladesh will hope to continue this trend.

2.3 - Six! This is what Mahedi has been picked in the squad for and why he has been included today. Gets down on one knee and deposits an Imad Wasim delivery well beyond the midwicket boundary. 

1.2 - Wicket! Mohammad Naim may have been Bangladesh's highest scorer in the first T20I but he goes for a first-ball duck today. But it was a terrible ball to get first up, and an incredibly good one to bowl to a new batsman from Pakistan pacer Shaheen Afridi. The ball pitched on off stump, zipped away off the surface and kissed the edge through to the keeper. Mohammad Naim c Mohammad Rizwan b Shaheen Afridi 0 (1b). FOW 5/1

Mahedi in for Mithun as Bangladesh choose to bat

Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah Riyad won his second toss in a row and chose to bat in the second T20I against Pakistan at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. 

There was one change to the team that lost by five wickets to Pakistan yesterday as all-rounder Mahedi Hasan was drafted into the team in place of batsman Mohammad Mithun. 

Pakistan, who lead the three-match series 1-0, are unchanged. 

Teams

Bangladesh: Tamim Iqbal, Mohammad Naim, Afif Hossain, Mahmudullah Riyad (c), Liton Das (wk), Soumya Sarkar, Mahedi Hasan, Aminul Islam, Shafiul Islam, Al-Amin Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman

Pakistan: Ahsan Ali, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Shadab Khan, Haris Rauf,  Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain

One of the recurring themes of Bangladesh's World Cup campaign has been the disappointing performance of the one batsman most fans would have been looking at to set the biggest stage alight for the Tigers. Tamim Iqbal averaged 57.06 between the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, but on the biggest stage, he managed 235 runs at an average of 29.37 from eight games. A player who takes great pride in performance and the legacy he will leave behind in Bangladesh cricket, the meagre returns frustrated Tamim throughout the event, even though it was his most successful World Cup in terms of runs scored. Yesterday, as the Tigers prepared to make their way back from the UK, Tamim spoke to The Daily Star's Sakeb Subhan about his disappointment and the need to move past it. The following are excerpts of the interview:

The Daily Star (TDS): Are you disappointed with your performance in the World Cup?

Tamim Iqbal (TI): Yes, very disappointed. In the sense that, after what happened in 2015, I have been preparing myself for 2019. In these four years I've had a lot of success. And then, even in Ireland I did really well. But I think that as soon as the World Cup started, I took a lot of pressure on myself. Just thinking that I don't go back to 2015 again. It is very easy for anyone who reads this to come and ask me why are you thinking like this, you have scored so many runs. But only I know what is going on inside. My nightmare was going back to 2015, what happened in 2015, how I suffered and my family suffered.

TDS: By that you mean the outside pressure after you dropped a catch against England and also some inconsistency with the bat?

TI: The outburst that happened was very new for me then. I couldn't handle it at that time. And then how the family suffered, and all of that. I knew very well that the World Cup is a tournament that makes even those who do not follow cricket start following; that's how big the event is. I think that is what killed me at the beginning. I took a lot of pressure on myself; I wanted to prove a point… not prove a point, I wanted to do really well.

And in these four years, the success I got, I never tried to prove to anyone. I just went there, batted and things happened. But here, I put so much pressure on myself to succeed that it hampered me. I was actually looking to get  a score in the first two games. That's very important for me. The 62 I scored [against Australia], if I could have scored that in the first two games, it could have been a different thing mentally. I think that is why I find it disappointing. The trolling, the criticism is part of my life. I need to accept it. I think that I have dealt with it much better than I did in 2015. What bothered me was myself. I lost to myself.

TDS: What bothered you more, that you couldn't score runs or the pressure you put on yourself?

TI: I took a lot of pressure to score runs. I had to score… I had to score. If you try too hard to do something, it doesn't happen. I really am not someone who has a bad tournament and will then come and give excuses, but actually I was very unlucky in this tournament. There were three to four dismissals where I couldn't do anything. The Cottrell runout, the three chop-ons. It had nothing to do with my technique. There were one or two dismissals which I regret… England and New Zealand. The first game [against South Africa] was a very good delivery, the last game [against Pakistan] was a good delivery. Surprisingly, though I didn't score runs, I actually batted really well. It wasn't as if I was being beaten or struggling. Whenever I batted, everybody thought – myself included – that this is the day probably. I went there and played a couple of nice shots and then it just happened. The good thing is I don't take the past innings with me when I am batting. I started panicking more because I was getting out after one mistake. I actually lost patience with myself. I wondered what the hell is happening. I talked to Neil and he said you cannot do anything. After the first two games I went to [batting coach] Neil [McKenzie] and said 'let's shoot my batting and see if there is anything technical'. Then he told me 'I wish I could tell you something', there was nothing. He said 'it's basically the same, you've done this'.

There are two positives from this. One was the processes that got me success, the way I batted and the processes I did before the game, I did exactly the same. In such situations, there will be people giving you all kind of advice: 'Go and attack', 'if this is not working you should bat like this or that'. That is the worst possible thing I could have done. Because after not scoring in two matches, if I went down the wicket to the first ball, or swung my bat around and then got out, then that would have the worst possible thing. The best thing I did was I never changed. I batted exactly the same way when I scored a lot runs and when I didn't score a lot runs – from game 1 to game 8 – I batted the same way.

TDS: When you say the same way, do you mean the changed Tamim who aims to bat till the 40th over?

TI: The aim is to bat deep. Sometimes, with the way I start… I will take time when I start the innings. When I am batting on 40 or 50, I make up the time I took. I have a lot of confidence in myself, the team, the coaching staff have a lot of confidence in me. It's not like I have done it for 10 games; I have done it for 50 games. Unfortunately I never got to that stage in this World Cup. People will say that there are a lot of ifs and buts, but it does not bother me because I know what I was trying to do. The other positive is that in my bad times, if I am averaging 30, I am pretty happy.

TDS: A lot of criticism has come because of your changed role, from swashbuckler to someone who bats all the way through.

TI: My role also has changed and, though it is a World Cup, I batted exactly the same way for the last five years. The way I batted actually helped the team to win. It doesn't bother me what people think. Changing myself because some people think a certain way is the worst possible thing I could do. What I do is not easy. My point is, if something has worked for me for a number of years, why should I change it? The people who understand cricket will understand what I went through and the people who don't understand cricket, will always criticise. And I am completely fine with it; I think I have come out of that space in 2015. There were high expectations, for me too, because I took myself to that level. It hurts a lot, but I need to come out of it.

TDS: You say that you have lost to yourself but also that the frustrations did not hamper you in the middle. Where did it affect you?

TI: It didn't affect me when I was batting. It affected me before the game – two days before the game. When playing a match, what you're doing in the middle is important but there are other important things. How mentally relaxed you are a day before, how positively you are thinking, all this adds to your batting. If you are not in a good mental space when you are going out to bat, it sometimes definitely hurts you and definitely affects your game. I took a lot of pressure to perform. It was not about social media or people writing about me, it was me who was the problem.

TDS: Did the dropped catch of Rohit Sharma add to the pressure?

TI: The catch drop didn't bother me either. I dropped the catch and felt bad for a couple of overs and I was up and running in two overs' time. I was going into the hot position to field. I was cheering when wickets were falling. I was probably the first one to go to Mustafizur when he took five wickets. Dropped catches are part of cricket. It was an important catch, I understand. A lot of criticism came after the dropped catch. Going forward, I will be taking a lot of good catches and I will also be dropping catches.

TDS: With three wins out of eight matches, how would you rate Bangladesh's performance?

TI: I thought it was a disappointing performance. We definitely had our moments and our chances. I could answer that question by saying that it was a very positive tournament, we pushed the best teams to the limit, but I think that we as a team have come out of that position. Just playing well is not our target. Playing well and winning games is our target. If you think in that way, we are number seven. If South Africa win we become number eight. So you cannot say it was a great campaign.

Cricket’s global crown will find a new resting place today when perennial bridesmaids England and New Zealand square off in the 2019 World Cup final at Lord’s. By the end of the final, cricket will have first-time world champions for the first time since 1996, when Sri Lanka etched its name into cricketing folklore.

England, the top-ranked ODI side, had been tipped for a maiden trophy before the tournament started, but New Zealand’s second successive final may have surprised some. Today’s final at Lord’s, starting at 10:30 am (3:30 pm Bangladesh time) will pit two contrasting cricketing philosophies against each other -- the pace-setters versus the adapters.

Since being booted from the 2015 World Cup at the group stage, England have undergone a renaissance. Fearlessness has been the mantra for the hosts -- they are arguably the only team capable of accelerating throughout the 50 overs of an ODI. They proved that for the umpteenth time in the semifinal against a formidable Australia. Having bundled their old foes out for 223, openers Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow did not give much space to Australia’s feted pacers, putting on 124 in just 17.2 overs. Even after their dismissals, England kept accelerating and romped home with 17.5 overs to spare as Joe Root and skipper Eoin Morgan ensured that the pressure on the Aussies does not relent.

Fittingly, England’s hyper-aggression was seeded by none other than New Zealand in the 2015 World Cup. Under Brendon McCullum’s captaincy, New Zealand had displayed the same streak of fearlessness as they romped unbeaten to the World Cup final before the wheels came off against Australia. Morgan had said before that it was their defeat to New Zealand, apart from the Adelaide loss against Bangladesh that sealed their exit, that brought home how far England lagged in terms of being at the cutting edge of ODI cricket.

“I think he has had quite a bit to do with it,” Morgan said at the pre-final press conference at Lord’s yesterday when asked about McCullum, whom he had just chatted with on the way to the press meet. “You could say about world cricket. We are close mates and he’s taught me a lot about leadership and I think in 2015 the way that New Zealand played, very similar to the way they are playing at the moment. They proved to everybody that you can perform at the highest level and get to the top by being yourselves and not trying to be somebody else, or a different team, or be somebody that is a bit of a novelty for everybody else, so that’s quite cool.”

Now, however, New Zealand are the adapters chasing England’s pace. That does not necessarily mean that they will be clear underdogs in the title-decider. They have proven to be remarkably awake to situations on the pitch. While McCullum blazed a new trail in 2015, Kane Williamson’s men are performing a function that has been a reality of New Zealand cricket since inception. Being a small country with a tiny talent pool, recognition of limitations has been their tried and tested method to success. And that is what they have done throughout the World Cup -- be it in pacing their chase against Bangladesh on June 5 and winning by a whisker, or resetting targets when batting in Manchester in the semifinal against India, when they bucked a three-match losing streak to beat the pre-tournament favourites in a match that rain had extended to the reserve day on July 10. Their adaptability has seen them through to the finals despite being the only team other than Afghanistan not to have scored 300 in the edition.

England captain Eoin Morgan and New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson will both look to etch their names into history when the sides square off in the World Cup final at Lord’s today. PHOTO: Twitter/AFP

“I think most teams expected scores to be a lot higher than what we have seen, but the reality of it is that they have been quite tough surfaces and there’s been surfaces that have aged throughout perhaps a match on one day,” Williamson said. “Trying to make those adjustments are really important. I think both sides looked at the surface [in the semifinal], thought it was a really good one, and thought perhaps 300 was going to be at play, but after 15 overs or so, we were saying ‘this is really quite difficult and 300 looks like a long, long way away’ so if we are able to perhaps achieve something a little bit more realistic on that surface, then that gives you every chance to win. And we have done it on a number of occasions but we will have to be good at doing that tomorrow.”

The pitch at Lord’s bore a green look and that may favour the Kiwis a little more as their seam attack has been the most consistent in the World Cup so far. Their bowling attack is the only one to have conceded runs at less than five an over and against a side that have scored at more than six an over throughout the tournament, that will probably be the main battle in deciding the new champions.

While England, having won their league match comfortably on July 3, will start as favourites, both sides have shown that the tools at their disposal -- aggression and adaptability -- can win the day. As Williamson said, it will all come down to responding to conditions and realities on the day.