We should have won this game: Mashrafe Mortaza

Bangladesh was handed over a rare limited-overs defeat last night by the rampant English team. The visitors had set them a target of 309 runs in the first ODI of the three-match series at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Dhaka. In their reply, the Bangla Tigers were off to a good start, it was capitalized well by the pair of Imrul Kayes and Shakib Al Hasan.

The duo who hit a century and half respectively were playing so well that the match appeared well in the pocket of the hosts. But the English bowlers led by debutant Jake Ball and Adil Rashid grabbed a fifer and a four-for to stumble the Bangladeshi chase. The lower order couldn’t get past them and in the end failed to close the game falling 21 runs short.

Skipper Mashrafe Mortaza felt that they shouldn’t have let the momentum slip out of hands and ideally they should have closed the game. “We should have won this game,” Mashrafe said. “We needed 39 runs from 52 balls with six wickets in hand at one stage, so the loss is disappointing. I think we could have tried to approach it differently. Maybe we could have batted slowly and go after the bowling with 15 to 16 needed in the last two overs.

“We cannot blame them but this is happening repeatedly. If we can come back from this, it will be become difficult for us. The dismissals told you there was a bit of panic. We could have played out 10 or 12 dot balls, but we got out trying to get the runs.”

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What those two had done for them was there was absolutely marginal pressure of the scoring rate even towards the end but everyone who walked out to bat after them didn’t show the patience and maturity to stand there and accumulate the runs but rather were in an unnecessary hurry to finish the game.

Mortaza said, “We should have batted more smoothly with five runs per over the asking rate. It is hard to explain what’s happening [after the 40th over]. If the asking rate is 5 or 6 per over, it is easier in the last ten overs under the new Powerplay rules. But if it was 8 an over, then they have an extra fielder outside. They needed to keep an extra fielder inside the circle to stop the singles but we played some rash shots.”

Earlier they were also sloppy on the field dropping catches. Two English batsmen who hurt them the most Ben Stokes who scored a hundred and Ben Duckett who hit a half century on debut were gifted lives and they went on to put together a 153-run partnership which boosted the team total beyond 300.

“The fielding cost us. If we could have taken those catches, we could have stopped them from around 280-290 runs. The mindset would have been different. We don’t bat on these wickets or chase 300 every day,” the Bangladesh skipper said.

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