Shuffling in batting order to continue?
While top teams, especially the ones who have been successful in this World Cup so far, seem to have proper clarity over their game plan, Bangladesh have looked drab and confused in formulating strategies in the mega event in India.
Struggles in the batting department have been a constant for Bangladesh in recent ODIs, mainly due to the failure of the top order which in turn has led to simultaneous shuffling in the batting order.
However, skipper Shakib Al Hasan, speaking to the media yesterday for the first time since being in India for the mega event, backed the constant shuffling in the batting order in all the first four matches of the World Cup.
"The reason to promote [Mehedi Hasan] Miraz up the order was mainly because he smashed a century against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup. So, we decided he would bat up the order against them," Shakib clarified the reason behind sending Miraz up the order against Afghanistan.
That ploy from the team management worked as Miraz scored a fifty and Bangladesh got off to a winning start in the tournament. However, it only went downhill for the Tigers since then as they suffered three big-margin defeats against England, New Zealand, and hosts India.
The India defeat saw Bangladesh come under heavy scrutiny as they failed to utilisie the Tigers' best-ever opening stand in the World Cup, set by Liton Das and Tanzid Hasan Tamim in their last game against India last week, mostly due to the team management's decision of sending Miraz up the order.
As Bangladesh had already gotten a solid start against India, questions were raised whether sending Mushfiqur Rahim, the team's leading scorer in the World Cup so far, would have made more sense considering his experience and well-known capability of rotating the strike.
"Some of our established batters are batting a bit lower down the order, but is there a guarantee that they will score higher up the order? These are difficult and tricky decisions that we have to make," Shakib was skeptical of the notion that promoting Mushfiqur up the order might have worked in Bangladesh's favour.
"It has mixed results. I think we still had chances to score 280-290 runs in all three matches. Only [Mahmudullah] Riyad bhai batted well till the end. I don't think you can criticise that. Riyad bhai is doing well but if we bring him up and he can't perform out of his usual position, then we will all feel about it," he added, hinting that the spontaneity in the batting order might continue even in the upcoming matches.