Bangladesh’s T20 batting, bowling in irremediable state

Bangladesh's upcoming T20 World Cup preparation couldn't have gone any worse after their shock five-wicket defeat to the USA in the first T20I on Wednesday. An ordinary day at the office, a below-par performance in all three parts of the game saw Bangladesh suffer a massive defeat raising questions about Bangladesh's ability in the shorter format of the game and chances in the upcoming mega event.

Batting, especially the top order, has been a concern for some time now and it got even worse in the first T20I at the Prairie View Cricket Complex in Houston on Wednesday. The top-order was somewhat non-functioning and non-T20-ish, again. 

The out-of-form Litton Das visibly struggled before getting dismissed for 14 off 15 balls in a T20I match, that too after getting a life early on. Skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto seemed to have forgotten how to bat. It has been a struggle for him to even middle the ball with the bat and his 'hard-fought' 3-run innings from 11 deliveries on Wednesday didn't help him or the team either. Soumya Sarkar had a better start than the other batters, but as always, he couldn't continue for long. 

Towhid Hridoy bagged a half-century, true, but his finishing is to be brought under the scanner too. He scored 58 runs from 47 balls hitting four boundaries and two maximums. Nothing extraordinary in the 20-over format but Bangladesh would take it any day. His first 40 runs came in 27 deliveries. And in the next 20 deliveries that he faced, he scored only 18 runs.

Bangladesh's T20 batting has been under the scanner for a while now and much has been talked about this. But the bowling needs to be discussed as well. 

Bangladesh failed to defend 60 runs in the final five overs against the USA on Wednesday. 60 runs from 30 balls is chaseable in T20 cricket these days, but if you're Bangladesh defending 60 runs against the USA who have lost half of their batters already, you should successfully defend that. 

But Harmeet Singh and Corey Anderson had other plans. The duo remained unbeaten and eventually won the match by five wickets for a historic victory for the hosts. 

Apart from a brief fightback in the middle overs thanks to Mustafizur Rahman's brace, Bangladesh's bowling was pretty ordinary, just like their batting.

Mustafiz, who had already bagged a brace and conceded only 9 runs in his first two overs, ended up giving away 41 runs in his four-over spell. The 'death overs specialist' of the Bangladesh team conceded 32 runs in his final two overs. 

Another death bowler, Shoriful Islam, conceded 14 runs in the 18th over which gave the USA batters some calm and confidence in the middle leaving them needing 24 runs in the final two overs. 

Harmeet Singh, the USA's hero in the first match, thought they had a chance when they saw Mustafiz bowling from the wind side. Even the USA won the battle of tactics and matchups against Bangladesh. 

"When I saw Fizz (Mustafiz) coming from the other end bowling with the wind, I was like, 'Here we have a chance where we can sneak in a 20-run over from the other side and see what we can get from Fizz.' So either they took us lightly or what, I don't know. But getting Mustafizur from this end, I would back myself anyway but on the other side they don't have overs to bowl with because they only have Shoriful one over and then someone had to bowl that last over," Harmeet said.

This was not the first time Bangladesh bowlers failed to do their job at the death in recent times. A similar thing happened in the second and third T20I against Zimbabwe just a few weeks ago at home. 

Zimbabwe reached 138/7 batting first in the second T20I after they were reduced to 38/4 after the first 10 overs. The Zimbabwean lower order bagged 100 runs in the final 10 overs against Bangladesh. In the third T20I, Zimbabwe were almost out of the chase losing their eighth wicket in the 15th over for 91 runs in the chase of 166. They eventually managed to score 156/9 after 20 overs, scoring 65 runs in the final 35 balls losing only one wicket.

Neither of Bangladesh's batting or bowling is up to the current T20 standard. There has been no solution to the existing problems of the top-order batting or the poor death bowling which matter the most in the shorter format of the game. An irremediable state, one may say. How they can rise from this and do better in the T20 World Cup remains to be seen.

But before that, the Tigers need to survive the USA scare first.