Asia Cup 2018: Super Four, Match 6- Pakistan vs Bangladesh Who Said What

Bangladesh lost their first match of the Super 4, but Mashrafe Mortaza’s men made a stupendous comeback to make the final of the Asia Cup against India in Dubai. After edging Afghanistan, they brushed aside Pakistan at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi by 37 runs. It was also the Tigers maiden victory against the Green Army in the 50-overs format of the multi-nation tournament.

Mushfiqur shoulders Bangladesh to respectability  

Bangladesh won the toss and had no hesitation to bat first, but their start was equivalent to a nightmare for the reason that they were reduced to 3/12 in the fifth over. While Junaid Khan dismissed Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar, Shaheen Shah Afridi got rid of Mominul Haque. However, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mohammad Mithun bailed them out from the precarious position.

The duo put on 144 runs for the fourth wicket and Hasan Ali separated them with Mithun’s wicket. Imrul Kayes couldn’t replicate his form from the previous match. Mushfiqur was thereafter unlucky to perish for 99 runs. Mahmudullah and some useful contributions from the lower order ensured that the Tigers posted a competitive total of 239 runs with seven balls left in the innings.

The Tigers roar and roar and roar

The run-chase started on a horrendous note for the Men in Green. Fakhar Zaman, Sarfraz Ahmed and Babar Azam were dismissed within the fourth over after which the onus was on Shoaib Malik and Imam-ul-Haq. Both didn’t play a shot out of anger and stitched together a stand of 67 runs, which was ended courtesy of a stupendous catch by Mashrafe Mortaza to dismiss Malik.

Shadab Khan couldn’t get going in his 24-ball stint in the middle. Asif Ali and Imam-ul-Haq brought Pakistan back into contention with a 71-run partnership. Unfortunately, the Men in Green lost both inside a couple of overs after which Pakistan couldn’t arrest their slump. On the other hand, to Bangladesh’s delight, they stormed to their third Asia Cup final.

Sarfraz Ahmed, the Pakistani captain, said

We are obviously not feeling good. As a team we have not done well. Our performance has been very poor. As a player, I have done really badly too. I should have done better. We were poor in every facet of the game. There were lot of batting collapses for us in the tournament. Fakhar is our main batsman, he failed to perform in this tournament and Shadab was hit by injury too. We have to play well to beat good teams. Our batting was the main reason of our defeat in this tournament. Shaheen Afridi is a talented youngster, we have given him opportunities to showcase his talent and he has done well too.

Mashrafe Mortaza, the Bangladeshi captain, said

We changed a bit with our bowling plan today. The bowlers have done a good job. Mushy batted so well and Mithun also batted well. We are proud of our fielding today. We haven’t seen such quality in a long time. Hopefully we will continue our fielding like this. I was lucky I didn’t drop that catch. If he didn’t get out, he would have carried on. One match to go and hopefully the boys will play hard.

Mushfiqur Rahim, the Man of the Match, said

With the new ball and with the quality Pakistan bowling had we knew we might lose early wickets. It’s very important that I believed in myself and I spoke to Mithun that we need to build a partnership which was very crucial at that stage. The wicket was pretty good and we wanted to make sure we dig in through the first 10 overs. The credit goes to the way I practice and the preparation I do gives me a lot of self belief. Whenever you are positive you take the right decisions more often and it helps a lot in my batting. Making the right decisions help me stay calm and my posture at the crease.

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