‘Our batting is a concern,’ admits Mahmudullah after Bangladesh suffer Scotland slip-up

Captain says Mushfiqur Rahim dismissal was “turning point” as small chase got out of hand

“I am very much frustrated,” Mahmudullah said. “Our batting is a concern. We have to bat better. We have to play aggressive cricket, regardless of the situation. We have a deep batting line-up, with Mohammad Saifuddin at No. 9. We may need to think over some changes tomorrow.

“We didn’t deliberately bat slowly. We couldn’t hit those boundaries. We have to bat better next time. A lot of things will come up since we lost the game. I think we didn’t play well today, but we are a good T20 team. We have the capability. When we play our best cricket, we can win games.”

Mahmudullah said that the chase never took off, and when wickets fell at crucial points, it kept raising the asking run rate even though they were chasing a moderate total on a flat pitch.

“We couldn’t make runs in the Powerplay. You need to start well chasing 140. I think Mushfiqur [Rahim] and Shakib [Al Hasan] made some recovery but in the middle [overs], we didn’t bat well even though it was on a good wicket. We made more mistakes.

“I think some big overs off the spinners would have raised our run rate, but probably losing wickets in the middle overs prevented us from getting those big overs. The asking run-rate, as a result, went up.”

Mahmudullah said that he, Afif Hossain and Nurul Hasan, tasked with providing quick runs in the second half of the innings, couldn’t quite get going, but also pointed out how Mushfiqur’s dismissal after making 38 off 36 balls turned the game in Scotland’s favour.

“I think Mushy’s wicket was the turning point,” he said. “He was batting well today. A set batter has to stay. Maybe I didn’t bat according to the situation. We should think better as a batting unit.

“If Afif and I, or Sohan [Nurul] and I could have carried a little longer, it would have brought us closer. But credit goes to their bowlers. They executed well. We made silly mistakes, and paid for it.”

But Mahmudullah didn’t blame his bowlers who leaked 85 runs in the last eight overs, rather praising them for getting the six early wickets.

“I think the bowlers were on the right track. We had them at 53 for 6, but then they had a good partnership. They played better cricket than us. We were just not good enough tonight. Mahedi [Hasan] and Shakib bowled very well. Maybe we could have bowled better in the death overs, but our batting was really bad. If we don’t take stock of it, it won’t get us anything good.”