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Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah both scored fifty runs to help Bangladesh reach 290/9 in the second one-day international against Zimbabwe in Harare.
After failing to successfully defend 303 in the first ODI ocf the series, Tamim gave Bangladesh a faster start with 10 fours and a six in his 45-ball innings. In a quick-fire 71-run opening stand with Anamul Haque, he was the dominant partner. In 84 balls, Mahmudullah scored an undefeated 80.
The loss of both batters within the span of ten balls, however, caused the innings to falter. Tamim fell shortly after reaching fifty, dragging Tanaka Chivanga directly into deep midwicket. Chivanga also contributed to Anamul’s run-out by intercepting a straight shot with his fingers at the non-end striker’s with Anamul outside the crease.
The momentum was stopped when Bangladesh’s innings entered the middle thanks to these wickets. However, a quick 50-run partnership between Najmul Hossain and Mushfiqur Rahim helped to steady the innings. Both were victims of Wesley Madhevere’s off spin after getting off to slow starts and unable to pick up the pace. Najmul edged a cut attempt and was caught behind while Rahim was out for a slog sweep.
Afif Hossain and Mahmudullah’s fifth-wicket partnership of 81 runs off 84 balls kept the innings from faltering once more. When the innings entered its final few overs, the latter was out after botching a reverse sweep against Sikandar Raza. Mehidy Hasan and Taskin Ahmed both lost their lives to him shortly after, making him the first of the spinner’s three wickets. Mahmudullah kept upping the ante as Bangladesh poured on 57 runs in the final six overs to finish with a challenging goal in between this collapse.
However, with a wise recollection, Domingo recounts that Bangladesh repeatedly makes the same errors.
Russell Domingo, the head coach of Bangladesh, believes that their team’s “frustrating” and frequent errors cost them the ODI series against Zimbabwe.
In order to defeat Bangladesh by five wickets on Sunday and win the ODI series with one match remaining, Zimbabwe put up a strong run chase for the second time in three days.
After losing early wickets, Zimbabwe recovered to chase 291 with 15 balls remaining, defeating a low scoring rate. With a fifth-wicket partnership of 201 runs, Sikandar Raza and Regis Chakabva turned the tide and helped the host nation win the series for the first time since 2013. Zimbabwe made a similar effort in the first game as well, chasing down almost 300 runs despite faltering at one point; Sikandar and Innocent Kaia then staged a remarkable comeback.
Domingo tells reporters in an introspective recollection, ”As a coach and as management, it’s very frustrating to see the mistakes because we seem to be making them more regularly than we should. We talked about it and we are trying to work on it but then under pressure players seems to make same mistake and that is an area of concern for us.”
“In both games they were 16 for 3 and 40 for 4 and then the boys just didn’t deal with the pressure well enough. Too many soft balls, too many balls bowled to the wrong field and wrong options taken. Boys are trying but they are not learning quickly and they are making the same mistakes over and over again. It’s a disappointing thing. They are trying hard but they are just not learning from their mistakes and keep making the same mistakes over and over and good teams and good players are gonna punish you under these conditions. They were punished by four really good hundreds in the last two games,” he continues to emphasize.
The main difference between the two sides, according to Domingo, was their inability to build strong partnerships while playing the hosts.
”No complacency at all. We have been talking about how dangerous this particular side is and last year we won the series 3-0 but there were really two tight games and we won the T20Is 2-1, so complacency never came into it,” said the South African coach on this matter that he shares.
The coach continues saying, ”We haven’t got any hundreds, we have got a lot of 50s and a lot of 40s but nobody batted long enough and got that big partnership.
”Some great lessons for us coaching staff and for the players with the World Cup still year and a half away. Fortunately these games don’t count for points so we got to see that as a great learning experience because we got outplayed in these last two games.”
