Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana lamented the lack of batting partnerships of his team in their four-run defeat against West Indies at the Bay Oval on Friday. After being impressive in restricting West Indies to 140, Bangladesh’s four partnerships were equal to or greater than 25.
But none was big enough to lead them to their second successive win in the tournament. In terms of individual performances, no batsman could score more than 25, which was Bangladesh’s highest score by Sultana and an unbeaten Nahida Akhtar.
“We have seen the last two matches here. So we saw spinners dominate here and we were planning to do the same thing. The bowlers did really well today to keep the West Indies batsmen in a decent total, which is unbelievable. If we could have built a partnership in batting, it could have been different,” Sultana said in the post-match virtual press conference.
Sultana further pointed to consuming too many dot balls and losing wickets in a cluster (3 for 60 and two for 85) as other factors that contributed to Bangladesh’s defeat. “I know the openers gave us the best starts in the last three games. Shamima (Sultana) fell today, but back-to-back wickets, it cost us a lot and I think if we can get two partnerships, at least a 20-run partnership, the result may have been different.
“We need to work on our strike rotation. We took a lot of deliveries to open the innings and even in the middle overs when we needed a single or rotating strike, it was not there.
Sultana also believed that letting West Indies score 70 runs in the last 15 overs proved costly for Bangladesh. “I think in a cricket match maybe teams give up and sometimes they form partnerships. It happened, but I think we put pressure on him from the beginning. He put up a very good score in the last 15 overs. We need to work on that. I think even though he didn’t really get a chance, we still bowled very few bad deliveries.”
Bangladesh’s next match in the World Cup will be against India at Seddon Park in Hamilton on Tuesday.
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