Bangladesh skipper Mahmadullah took the burden of the loss on himself and labelled Liton Das’ wicket as the crucial moment of the game that took the match away from them.
Bangladesh suffered a close defeat at the hands of the West Indies on Friday. The match wasn’t one-sided by any stretch of the imagination and could have gone either way. During the second half of the first innings, Nicholas Pooran and Jason Holder’s antics propelled them to a competitive total.
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Batting at number three, Liton Das anchored scored 44 runs in 43 balls, with four boundaries. The Dinajpur-born batsman registered his best T20I inning of the year but perished at the wrong time.
Das and Mahmadullah shared a solid 40-run partnership before the former’s wicket. On the last ball of the penultimate over, Das tried smacking Dwayne Bravo for a six over long-on, but Jason Holder used every inch of his 6’7” frame to complete the catch. If the shot had crossed the fence, Bangladesh would have required just six runs off the last over, with two set batters at the crease.
“The partnership with Liton was going well, but had his shot off Bravo’s last ball gone for six instead, it would have put us in a better position.
Mahmadullah said.
The 35-year-old labelled Das’ wicket in the 19th over as ‘a big turning point’. He reckons that one of the two set batters would have hit a six or a four.
Mahmadullah and the new batsman, Afif Hossain, could not pull the trigger during the last over. As a result, WI won by three runs. The Bangladesh captain took responsibility for the loss, as he couldn’t find a boundary in the last over.
He said that he knew Andre Russell would primarily bowl yorkers in the 20th over. Four men were marshalling the boundary ropes on the leg side, making it difficult to hit a four or a six.
He thought he could make some room for himself and ‘squeeze’ the ball through the cover or backward point regions.
“I couldn’t execute the last ball; it was my fault,”
the all-rounder added.
