Five centuries were scored in the first three matches of the ongoing Champions Trophy, with three of them by top-order batters. The exceptions were Tom Latham of New Zealand, who batted at number five against Pakistan, and Towhid Hridoy at the same position against India.
But only Hridoy had to endure a defeat despite his heroics helping the Tigers to make 228 from a disastrous 35-5.
Latham, on the other hand, wasn鈥檛 the only centurion from his team in that match at Karachi, as opener Will Young smashed one too.
As the ODI format goes now, it is paramount for the top order to score a substantial amount of the team鈥檚 runs.
Post-2019 World Cup, 156 hundreds have been scored in the 50-over format; 127 of those came in winning causes. And 85 of those鈥攖hat is, about 66.93 per cent鈥攃ame from the batters who were slotted in the top three.
But Bangladesh have seen only 10 such hundreds, which came from the top-order batters, and those ended in a winning cause.
Among the eight participating teams in this Champions Trophy, only England (before their Champions Trophy opener against Australia on Saturday) have less.
The 2019 champions have been struggling in this format due to various reasons, one of those being the lack of contribution from the upper order.
But when it comes to Bangladesh, the problem has caused them much trouble in recent times. Once considered their favourite format, it is beginning to fade away from them.
One reason behind this is that Bangladesh are used to playing and gaining success in the 50-over format in an old-fashioned way where pitches tend to turn and are on the slowish side.
But in a tournament like this, where most of the matches will be played on flat tracks in Pakistan where there will not be much bounce, it is vital to use the new balls to score some invaluable runs at the top.
Bangladesh have failed miserably to do so in their first match against India in Dubai, a pitch that became difficult to score on with time.
Two of the top three scored none while one opener made 25. And all of those got out while trying manufacturing a shot that was not on. Hridoy and Jaker Ali had to drag on them from a precarious position to give their bowlers something to fight on, but a hundred from Indian opener Shubman Gill proved that to be futile.
鈥榃e were clear what we wanted to do if we won the toss,鈥� Hridoy said after the match. 鈥榃e wanted to bat. Yes, we lost some early wickets, which set us back.鈥�
鈥楤ut despite that, the way we came back, Jaker and I, if one of us had done a bit more, we might have reached 260-270. The match scenario would have been different then. We scored 30-40 runs too few,鈥� Hridoy admitted.
However, it鈥檚 been nothing new for a Bangladesh team to say something like this鈥攖hey fell short by a particular amount of runs.
As Bangladesh are heading into their next phase in the tournament, when they will play the next two group stage matches in Rawalpindi against New Zealand and host Pakistan on February 24 and 27, respectively, the role of the top-order batters will be more vital so that the team won鈥檛 have to regret not scoring a total that was required to.
