Shakib laments the lack of a game-changer

Cricket365
August 2, 2018

Bangladesh T20I skipper Shakib Al Hasan felt that the position Bangladesh worked their way into in the first T20I left them with little chance of getting a result.

The skipper felt that if his team had an allrounder the likes of their opponent’s star man Andre Russell then perhaps they could have pulled themselves out of trouble.

Shakib said: “At one stage we were 100 in 11 overs but by that stage we also lost five wickets. It’s tough to make a comeback from that position unless you have someone like Andre Russell or someone like him who can change the game single-handedly.”

The skipper felt his team were chasing the game and left the West Indies to cruise to victory by failing to pick up wickets in the shortened chase. The West Indies needed to get just 93 in 11 overs to take a 1-0 series lead in the three-match T20I series.

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“It is always difficult to defend such a total because you have to take wickets at regular intervals if you want to win a game with such kind of total on the board,” said Shakib.

“You cannot blame them [the openers] because in this kind of format you have to charge from the very beginning. The important thing was that we lost wickets at crucial stages. Even after the early wickets, I and Litton [Das] had a good partnership but we lost our wickets in the last over of the Power play, which was a setback for us,” Shakib added.

Shakib felt, Mushfiqur and Mahmadullah batted well in patches but as a unit more is needed from the batsmen.

“Mushfiqur bhai and [Mahmudullah] Riyad bhai had a good partnership, and then Mushfiqur bhai lost his wicket. We lost wickets at crucial stages and that is why we never had the momentum,” he added.