It didn’t feel like the real Bangladesh were playing: Nazmul

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan has expressed his dissatisfaction at the way Bangladesh played and lost the Twenty20 International (T20I) series against Pakistan 2-0.

"After a long time it felt like Bangladesh weren't playing. They weren't playing like they can and should. There was no direction with the way the team played. I have never seen a situation like this where we are 96 for no loss and failing to score runs. After 12-14 overs, we were still play so defensively, so it was a completely unfamiliar experience for me," Nazmul said at a press conference to the media in Dhaka on Wednesday.

He was also bemused as to why Bangladesh chose to bat first after winning the toss in conditions that were not familiar to them.

"I had a discussion with Mahmudullah Riyad and Tamim Iqbal after the first match and asked them why we took batting first. Playing in unfamiliar conditions after so many years chasing would have been better. They explained that it was a batting pitch, but after seeing the way they played, it didn't seem like a batsman friendly pitch to me," the BCB chief expressed.

Nazmul explained he had a discussion with the senior players after the second T20I and was shocked to hear what they thought was a good score.

"After the second match, I asked them what would be a good score and they said 150. But I told them that 150 is not a winning total to me. 160 should be the minimum and teams sometimes lose even after scoring 200. We made the same error when we played against India in the pink ball Test and we took batting, despite not having enough experience of playing against the pink ball. They are saying ahead of the game that these are batting wickets, but after they match they are saying it was difficult to bat on. So the question has to be raised as to who is failing to understand these and who is making these decisions. Is it the captain or the head coach or both," Nazmul explained.

But what really shocked the BCB president the most was the batting order and the promotion of Mahedi Hasan to bat up the order which he saw no logic to.

"The thing that shocked me the most was the batting line-up. When Tamim was injured we saw an opening combo of Liton Das and Naim Sheikh. We also had Soumya Sarkar who could open. But in the second match, we saw that when Naim was out early, Mahedi Hasan come on to bat, who is supposed to be batting at number seven as far as I know. I don't know if it was an experiment or not but it didn't seem logical to me," Nazmul added.

He also didn't understand why captain Mahmudullah didn't elevate himself up the batting order in the absence of experienced Mushfiqur Rahim, who opted out of the Pakistan tour.

"Liton, Tamim and Naim would be in the first three batsmen in the order is what I would have expected. In fact with Mushfiqur Rahim unavailable for the series, I would have liked to see Riyad bat at number four since he likes to bat up the order. But he came in to bat as late as possible. Whatever the case, scoring 130-140 will not win us matches against any opposition. I need to have a serious discussion with the coach and with the players about these things for sure," he concluded.