Bangladesh’s skipper Shakib Al Hasan blasted India with his all-round performance in a dead rubber match in the super four stages of the Asia Cup. Shakib Al Hasan scored 80 runs on the tough surface and then picked up a wicket. For his performance, Shakib Al Hasan got the player of the match and constructed his innings smartly as the surface was quite treacherous
In the dead rubber encounter, Bangladesh batted first, but their openers could not do anything big for their team as both openers were sent back early in the inning by Indian pacers, and Shardul Thakur picked two out of the top three wickets.
The partnership between Bangladesh’s skipper Shakib Al Hassan, 80 (85), and young Towhid Hridoy, 54 (81), endorses the shaking inning of Bangladesh. At the backend, Nasum Ahmed had a great hand with the bat and helped the team reach a fighting target for a strong Indian batting lineup.
In reply, Rohit Sharma was removed early in the inning, but Shubman Gill started beautifully. Debutant Tilak Verma could not repeat his form in the game; Kl Rahul was also caught by Shamim Hossain, as was Ishan Kishan, but Shubman Gill was looking rock solid on the crease; no other batter could sit with him.
Suryakumar continued his bad run in the ODI format, and Ravindra Jadeja was also bowled by Mustafizur. A little hand was shown by Axar Patel, but at the end Gill completed his ton and got out at the score of 121 (133), and India lost the match just by 6 runs.
It was a challenging wicket- Shakib Al Hasan
During the post match presentation, Shakib Al Hasan emphasized on the fact that the management wanted to give chance to the players who haven’t played much cricket. Shakib Al Hasan pointed out that he wanted to spend some time in the crease and said that it wasn’t easy to bowl against India’s batting line up while defending 266 runs.
“Yes, we gave the guys a chance who haven’t played much. After the last couple of games here, we thought spinners would do well. Today, I went early and had time to spend on the crease. It was a challenging wicket. It was seaming a bit, but it got easier as the ball got older,” said Shakib Al Hasan.
“It wasn’t an easy time to bowl, but Mahedi came to bowl and got us the breakthrough. He also bowled five overs at the end, which is not easy for a spinner. Also, Tanzim bowled well at the start and took two wickets. We have a very good team. A lot of players were injured, and some went in and out, which didn’t help us. I think we will be a dangerous side in the World Cup,” he added.
Also read: Asia Cup 2023: Reality Check To Rohit Sharma & Co