Cornered Tigers eye consolation win against Pakistan

Touring Bangladesh National Cricket Team are looking for a consolation win against Pakistan when they lock horns in the 3rd and last game of the three-match T20 series at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Monday.

The match will kick off at 3pm Bangladesh time.

Before the series, Tigers’ captain Mahmudullah Riyad and coach Russell Domingo insisted that they were upbeat about winning the series in Pakistan.

The Tigers lost the first game of the series by six wickets and suffered a humiliating nine-wicket defeat in the second game to lose the three-match series.

Bangladesh failed to pose a challenging performance in the middle in both the games.

But right-arm pacer Shafiul Islam has said they are upbeat to win the last match of the series. “We always try to win whenever we play a series. We came here to win the series. But the situation didn’t come in our way. Now, we’ve one more match to play. We’re confident of winning the match before returning home,” he told the media on Sunday.

In both of the previous games, Bangladesh won the toss and batted first. But they failed to post a decent total on both occasions. In the first game, Bangladesh posted 141 on the board and in the next game, they scored only 136 runs which is now the two lowest scores in the venue.

Shafiul said the Tigers made some mistakes repeatedly which has narrowed the chance for Bangladesh to win the series. According to the pacer, even a small mistake can ruin the game in the T20 format.

“I don’t know why (we’re failing in Pakistan). Everyone is trying their best to perform well. Maybe Pakistan are having their days. The small mistakes are big in the T20 format. I think it was the reason behind our dismal show,” he added.

“We’ve the ability (to beat Pakistan). But our team are so young. Apart from Tamim (Iqbal) and Mahmudullah (Riyad), we’re a young team. But we’ve played in the BPL and did well. In the first match, we were short by a few runs. In the second match, Babar (Azam) and (Mohammad) Hafeez played superbly, and that’s why we lost,” the pacer further said.

Bangladesh had included six batsmen in the T20 squad for Pakistan tour which has failed to come up with a good result for the team. With the T20 World Cup ahead, Domingo must need to rethink his strategy to build a strong T20 team.

After the T20 series, the Tigers will return home. And they will travel to Pakistan again in February to play a one Test starting from February 7.UNB