‘Still learning’, says Liton about middle-over frailty

Comilla Victorians skipper Liton Das said his side as well as his national team teammates leave a lot to be desired when it comes to playing according to the different phases of play, particularly the middle overs.

Liton's streak of failure with the bat eased up against Khulna Tigers in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) on Wednesday as he put away four sixes and two fours for a 30-ball 45, more than half of the runs he managed in his past five BPL innings and also his highest score in the ongoing edition.

Liton's knock helped his side to 149 for seven and an Aamer Jamal fifer in the second innings ensured Comilla came out victorious.

"We have a few shortcomings playing in the middle order. We suffer from this even in the Bangladesh team. When we get a start in the Powerplay, we can't play in the middle overs and when we do well in the middle overs, we can't finish," Liton told the reporters after the match on Wednesday.

"We are still in the learning stages. It is not like we are a good team. As we keep playing matches in the BPL, we will manage to learn how to play the middle overs," he added.

Batting first in the contest, Comilla got off to a brisk start as they scored 46 runs for no loss in the Powerplay, courtesy of Liton who smashed all his four maximums inside the first six

Despite the solid start, however, Comilla could add only 51 runs in the next nine overs at a rate of under six runs an over.

A quickfire cameo from Jaker Ali, who scored an eight-ball 18, propelled Comiila towards the 150-mark after Will Jacks and Towhid Hridoy departed having played knocks with strike rates of under 100.

The poor quality of wickets has been pointed out as one of the main reasons for the consistent presentation of dull affairs but Liton was quick to take some of the blame away from the pitches saying that batters have to be proactive to score as well.

 "You can't always blame the wickets. Those who can play taking calculative risks can score on this ground. There was a situation today from when we could've scored 170. No one would've blamed the wicket if we got there.