After a 50-run defeat to India in their Super Eights match of the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup, veteran all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan expressed his preference for Bangladesh to have batted first. This sentiment came despite captain Najmul Hossain Shanto’s decision to bowl after winning the toss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Personally, if you ask me, batting first has been the trend for most teams in the Caribbean, and they have been very successful,” Shakib remarked during the post-match press conference. “Ideally, you would have batted first, but maybe the captain and coach thought otherwise.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked if his perspective was considered by the team management, Shakib admitted it wasn\u2019t. “No, I don’t have any part or role in this. These are not the issues of experience or seniority. When there is a leader, a captain, it’s his decision. If we would do well, the credit would go to the captain. If we did bad, we question the decision of the coach and captain. It’s normal. It seems very reasonable to me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bangladesh’s decision to bowl first seemed questionable after India set a daunting target of 197. Shakib explained the reasoning behind their strategy: “We thought that we could restrict them in a reasonable way so that there is a score in our head and we know how we should go about when we bat. So maybe that’s the reason we decided to field first.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another strategic move that raised eyebrows was opening the bowling with spinners Shakib and Mahedi Hasan instead of left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who could have exploited weaknesses in India’s top order. Shakib elaborated, “It’s hard for me to explain. But from what I can understand, we thought that the wicket would be a little slower. It looked a little drier, maybe at the start of the game. So that’s why they thought that there might be some help for the spinners.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the challenges, Shakib did not shy away from criticizing Bangladesh’s batting performance. “We have a 50 percent win rate in this World Cup but if we had fought against India and Australia the way we fought against South Africa, we could have called it a good World Cup campaign. We are short of runs as a batting unit. We made 140 in the last game, 146 here.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He continued, “We should have done better since we had a target in front of us. We couldn’t even show it to people that we were trying to chase the target. I don’t think the confidence was there. We have lacked in this area throughout the World Cup. You have to bring your A-game against teams like Australia and India.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shakib concluded by highlighting the need for improvement in skill and intent. “Maybe India scored 20 more runs but we have to show the intent from the start of the innings, and I don’t think it was there. We don’t really do well when we play on flat wickets that produce 180-200 runs. We play better on wickets that produce 130-150 runs. That’s what we are familiar with. Apart from one game in BPL this year, our local batters haven’t really chased big runs. It remains our weakness.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a 50-run defeat to India in their Super Eights match of the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup, veteran all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan expressed his preference for Bangladesh to have batted first. This sentiment came despite captain Najmul Hossain Shanto’s decision to bowl after winning the toss. “Personally, if you ask me, batting first has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n