Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal speaks to reporters at Dunedin, New Zealand on Monday.— BCB photo
Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal on Monday said that they were just concentrating on playing good cricket in the third one-day international against New Zealand after big hammerings in the first two one-dayers.
The Tigers, especially the top-order batsmen, provided dismal show in both the matches respectively in Napier and Christchurch, which made them pay dearly as New Zealand romped to identical eight-wicket win on each occasion.
In the first one-dayer in Napier, Bangladesh were held to 94-6 in one stage of their innings and things got repeated in the second match at Christchurch when they were reduced to 93-5 that left the lower order with too much to do.
Bangladesh managed to score 232 and 226 runs respectively thanks to some heroics of Mohammad Mithun, who made fifty in both the matches, but the totals could hardly put New Zealand into any trouble.
Martin Guptill struck centuries in both the matches to protect New Zealand’s unbeaten record against Bangladesh at home.
Tamim, who failed on each occasion, said Bangladesh are just one win away from breaking the New Zealand conundrum.
‘If you win a match, mentally you will be positive. That’s fine,’ Tamim told reporters in Dunedin, the city in New Zealand’s southern island, where he made his Test debut in 2008.
‘But for me at the moment the most important thing is that we play good cricket,’ Tamim said ahead of the third and final ODI on Wednesday.
‘In the two matches, we haven’t played good cricket. Last year we played good cricket in some matches but we lost those matches. But this year in the first two matches we didn’t play good cricket. So our target will be playing according to our plans and play a good match,’ he added.
Tamim lamented that their top-order repeated the same mistake in both the matches to lose wickets quickly and now they would be concentrating on playing the initial 10 overs without giving away their wickets.
‘In both the matches, especially in the first match the wicket was very good. We just couldn’t get a start. We know that they have two bowlers who bowl particularly well in the first 10 overs. But the bad part was that we gave them four wickets in the first 10 overs.
‘In the second match also, I feel the wicket was good. They found some help because of the rain and the weather, but the wicket was really good.
‘If you see the second innings, or even our innings you will find after 15-20 overs the wicket wasn’t doing that much. We committed the same mistake again. We lost few wickets in the initial overs which gave them an early foothold in the match.
‘This is the important thing, I feel in the 3rd ODI. If we bat well in the first 10 overs, even if we don’t score a lot of runs, without losing too many wickets we could keep them under pressure in the middle overs,’ he added.
Bangladesh have an injury problem before the third match with Mithun and Mushfiqur Rahim unlikely to play in the final match. Mominul Haque was included in the ODI squad as their back up.
‘Injuries could happen to anyone. But I don’t think the rest of the squad should worry about it….Yeah, one of them was in great form and the other person is a very important member of our team,’ said Tamim.
‘If they could play, it’s always a positive side, but if they are not able to play I’m sure whoever would replace them will try to give their best,’ Tamim said.
Source: New Age.
