After enduring a 50-run loss to India in their Super Eights match of the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup, seasoned left-arm spin all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan expressed his preference for Bangladesh batting first, contrary to captain Najmul Hossain Shanto's decision to bowl.
“Personally if you ask me in the Caribbean it’s one or two games – when England chased that 180. Other than that batting first has been the trend for most of the teams and they have been very successful. So, if you look at the stats, ideally you would have batted first, but maybe the captain and coach thought otherwise,” Shakib stated at the post-match press conference.
When asked if his opinion was considered by the team management, Shakib clarified he had no role in the decision-making. "No, I don’t have any part or role in this. These aren’t matters of experience or seniority. When there’s a leader, a captain, it’s his decision. If we perform well, the captain gets the credit. If we don’t, the coach and captain's decision is questioned. It’s normal and seems very reasonable to me.
"But that’s how it goes. It’s how the game is played. If we had taken two wickets in the first two overs, it would seem like a good decision. Since there were no wickets in those overs, naturally we thought it would be better to bat first on this wicket.
"We believed we could restrict them to a manageable score and then plan our batting accordingly. So maybe that’s why we chose to field first," he explained.
Another puzzling decision was Bangladesh’s choice to open the bowling with Shakib and off-spinner Mahedi Hasan, instead of using fast-bowler Mustafizur Rahman, who had a favorable match-up against India’s openers Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, both of whom struggle against left-arm pacers.
"Well, that’s difficult for me to explain. It’s the coach and captain’s decision on who bowls and when. So, it’s hard for me to explain. But from what I can understand, we thought the wicket would be a bit slower.
"It looked a little drier, maybe at the start of the game. So that’s why they thought there might be some help for the spinners. That’s likely why the captain decided to go with the spinners," said Shakib.
Even though they played on a fresh pitch at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, chasing 197 was always going to be a tough challenge for Bangladesh’s batting line-up, which eventually fell short at 146/8, lacking the aggressive approach needed to chase down a big target. Shakib admitted his disappointment with Bangladesh’s batting performance.
“We have a 50 percent win rate in this World Cup, but if we had fought against India and Australia the way we did against South Africa, we could have considered it a good World Cup campaign. We are short of runs as a batting unit. We made 140 in the last game, 146 here.
“We should have done better since we had a target in front of us. We couldn’t even show people that we were trying to chase the target. I don’t think the confidence was there. We have lacked in this area throughout the World Cup. You have to bring your A-game against teams like Australia and India.
“I think we lacked in skill and strength. We couldn’t do the basics for longer periods to create pressure. Throughout this World Cup, I don’t think we justified ourselves as a batting unit. We are capable of scoring big runs. We were well short of par scores like 175-185 in the last two games, both played on good wickets.
“Maybe India scored 20 more runs, but we have to show intent from the start of the innings, and I don’t think it was there. We don’t perform well on flat wickets that produce 180-200 runs. We play better on wickets that produce 130-150 runs. That’s what we are familiar with. Apart from one game in BPL this year, our local batters haven’t really chased big runs. It remains our weakness,” he concluded.
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