‘40s and 50s not enough’ - Siddons points to Tamim, Liton's knocks

Batting consultant Jamie Siddons opined that Bangladesh fell some way short of the first innings score they should have gotten and felt batters did not make more of the starts they got as Bangladesh were bowled out for 234 at St. Lucia yesterday.

Opener Tamim Iqbal was looking in good touch as Bangladesh got off to a neat start. Tamim punished the bad deliveries easily and despite steep bounce on a few deliveries, was able to showcase his intent. The loose shot against Alzarrri Joseph saw him unable to make better use of his start as he was dismissed for 46. Liton Das, who was batting with tailenders, was just a bit unlucky to find the only fielder in the huge gap between square leg and mid on as he perished trying to score quickly after a 70-ball 53.

Siddons said that the batters should have made more out of those knocks since they were batting comfortably during their stay in the wicket.

"We just need to bat longer. In Test cricket you got to bat on for a long time. You gotta be there at the end of the day and then we gotta be batting on tomorrow. We are failing to do that at the moment. We are getting blokes that look more comfortable with the bounce that you get over here. Today I thought Tamim, Liton looked fantastic but 50s and 40s are not going to give you enough runs. So those sorts of players need to go on when they get their start.

Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Najumul Hossain Shanto and Anamul Haque Bijoy all got starts but did not make it count either.

"Couple of the younger players looked really impressive but again got out. Probably couple of umpiring decisions looked close but didn't go our way. So 230, we're struggling at the moment," Siddons said.

The batting consultant remarked that although there was no batting disasters at the top of the order, it was painfully obvious that the surface was good for batting and had lot more runs on offer.

"No. There was no swing there today which really bothered us in the first Test," he said, reminding that batting debacles had resulted in scores of 103 and 245 in the first Test at Antigua.

Shoriful Islam went after a few deliveries coming in at number 10 and his 17-ball 24, containing five fours, allowed Bangladesh's total to go over 200. Initially however, Bangladesh were in a good position after lunch with just two down for 100 runs during the second session.

"Fairly placid surface as shown by Shoriful's hitting. Not too dirty but when you bat first, little bit of pressure to get the game underway. We handled that okay. Our opening partnership was good. 2 for 100 staring down the barrel of a 400 but at 230, we fell well short of what we should have achieved today," a disappointed Siddons said.