Bangladesh walked into the World Cup with four defeats in their previous five games – including the warm-up game against India – and all that did was lower expectations from almost everyone that this time around, things were not meant to happen.
The Tigers, though, came out with a brilliant bowling performance against Sri Lanka, which paved the way for a win that they made more complicated than it needed to be.
Their top-order faltered [once again], opening a window for Sri Lanka to see sunshine at the end of the tunnel, which was then closed by Liton Das and Towhid Hridoy, but then they left the door ajar once again, which made the match into the most nervous one Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto has ever been in.
That, though, was not from freak dismissals or absolute brilliant bowling from the Lankans but from a glaring gap in game sense, especially from Shakib Al Hasan.
Following Towhid’s 20-ball 40 and Liton’s steady 36 off 38 balls, Bangladesh needed just 26 runs off 35 balls with Mahmudullah and Shakib at the crease.
The latter continued on his lack of form and managed just eight runs off 13 balls before he decided to ramp Matheesha Pathirana despite the third man fielder being stationed at the boundary, from where Maheesh Theekshana ran in to take a brilliant diving catch. Bangladesh needed just 16 off 23 balls at that point.
Shakib, despite all of his experience, opted to play the ball in the air when the required run rate was loitering around four, meaning singles would have been more than enough. And even more shocking, he decided to play the lofted shot where a fielder was stationed.
In the next over, Nuwan Thushara’s last and the 18th of the Bangladesh innings, Rishad Hossain, who had a brilliant game until then with the ball in hand, tried to go after the pacer despite that being the last over from any of Sri Lanka’s frontline bowlers.
Expectedly, the Bangladesh all-rounder lost his stumps, and in the next ball, Taskin Ahmed was trapped lbw, and Sri Lanka were suddenly just two strikes away from an unconceivable win.
Even in the penultimate over, after Mahmudullah hit the six and took a single to bring it down to four runs off 10 balls, Tanzim Hasan Sakib decided to try and hoick it down the ground, as if the equation was the other way around.
The ball that brought Bangladesh the win, the final one of the 19th, was hit straight to mid-off by Mahmudullah, and they ran. If Wanindu Hasaranga hit the stumps, the veteran would have been out, and Mustafizur Rahman – Bangladesh’s number 11 – would have had to face the first ball of the next over.
The question is, if Mahmudullah could trust Sakib with four balls in the penultimate over, why couldn’t he do so for the final one when just two were required?
Bangladesh got away with these errors on Saturday, but it is unlikely that the same will happen if they make their errors again, especially in their next game against South Africa.
Skipper Shanto believes that this win will boost their confidence, despite the strenuous manner of it.
‘Of course, everyone is confident after winning such a match. But since we won this match, everyone will obviously have extra-confidence. So, if we can go to the second match with this confidence, then it will help us. I hope there will be something better in the second match as well,’ he said after the game.
Alongside the confidence, he will hope that they will recover the game sense as well, because not every day there will be a bailout like there was against Sri Lanka.
