Former Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza has criticised Bangladesh's approach in their loss to Afghanistan which put them out of the T20 World Cup yesterday (June 24), stating that there was "no clear message" during the run chase.
Bangladesh were knocked out of the T20 World Cup by Afghanistan after they were bowled out for 105 in a chase of 116 in Kingstown. Having previously lost their other two Super Eight fixtures, Bangladesh needed to win against Afghanistan and boost their net run rate enough to surpass both Afghanistan's and Australia's. In order to do this, Bangladesh would have had to chase their target in 12.1 overs.
However, the approach from the batting unit appeared muddled at the beginning of the chase. While Litton Das pushed the scoring rate to make sure Bangladesh were in with a chance of a quick chase, at 73-5 and with just 19 balls to get the remaining 43 runs, Mahmudullah played out five dot balls from Noor Ahmad's tenth over, before Rashid Khan struck twice in the next.
Spreaking after the match, Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto defended his team's approach. "The plan was to try [to win the game in 12.1 overs] if we get a good start in the powerplay," he said. "We thought that if we don't lose early wickets, we could take the chance. When we lost three wickets, we had a different plan. We wanted to see how we could win the game. The middle-order didn't take good enough decisions, which is why we lost the game today."
Shanto's comments caused frustration from some quarters however, with the total still chasable within the timeframe when the strategy appeared to change.
In a Facebook post, Mortaza - who captained Bangladesh to the semi-finals of the 2017 Champions Trophy, wrote: "Litton's intent and the non-strikers silence suggests that there was no clear message for the batting unit. Even if there was a message, it changed every one or two overs. It ended up with the decision to try to just win the game.
"Today should have been just about winning in 12.1 overs. There was no other way of thinking. Everyone would have understood if they got bowled out for 50. If we had won this game, we would have lost to our conscience. This was not like ten other matches. We could have made history today."
In his post-match interview, Shanto also apologised to Bangladesh fans. Afghanistan will play their semi-final against South Africa on Wednesday, June 26.
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