Could have been a different ball game with 325-300, says Tamim

For nearly the first half of its ICC Champions Trophy 2017 opener against England on Thursday at The Oval, it seemed like Bangladesh would give the home side stiff competition. It all changed drastically over the next half, resulting in England coasting to a comfortable eight-wicket victory in a chase of 306.

Bangladesh opted to play the extra batsman in Imrul Kayes at the expense of Mehedi Hasan or Taskin Ahmed. Mashrafe Mortaza, the captain, agreed that it weakened the bowling but explained that the decision was taken to give the batsmen “freedom”.

“Yeah, we always knew that,” he said when asked if the bowling department was undermined. “But the idea was to give an extra bit of freedom to the batters so that they can express themselves a little bit better. Yes, we could have picked one more bowler, but the sense (logic) was that.”

Despite playing the extra batsman, the consensus among Bangladesh’s senior players – Mortaza, Mushfiqur Rahim and Tamim Iqbal – was that it fell 30 runs short on the flat pitch.

“With eight batters, we were in a great position to score 330 or 340, but we couldn't,” rued Mortaza, while Rahim said Bangladesh was 30 runs short, as it had to fill in 10 overs from the part-time bowlers.

Tamim played a wonderful hand, scoring 128 in 142 balls as Bangladesh scored 305 for 6 after being put in, but he took 25 balls to go from 84 to 100, although there were plenty of wickets in hand.

Tamim, though, was happy with the way he paced his innings. “When we started, the wicket was two-paced; at times it was zipping and at other times it was coming slow,” he explained. “So it was not that easy to hit big shots or hit down the line.

But after the tenth over, the wicket started to get better and with a quick outfield I just batted normally. I did not want to do anything special. I was taking one ball at a time. What I did today was I did not miss any boundary opportunity. Whenever I got the bad ball I made sure it went for a four or six.”

Then, in the 45th over, Liam Plunkett got Tamim and Rahim off successive deliveries, both batsmen going for big hits. It meant Bangladesh managed only 46 runs in the last six overs.

“We missed around 15-20 runs especially when I got out and next ball Mushy (Rahim) got out,” said Tamim. “Mushy was actually hitting the ball better than me. He was batting superbly. Losing two wickets in two balls put us a little bit on the back foot. Nothing to take away the way England batted, but if we could have scored 325-330 could have been a different ball game with the scoreboard pressure.”

Mortaza, too, identified that over as the turning point, but Rahim was firm in his justification of the shot selection. “I knew that on that track you can't get bogged down in the latter part of an over,” he said.

“I knew we needed a 330-plus total. Although Tamim got out, the next ball I (went for the shot but) didn't execute it well. But if the other batsmen could have chipped in in the last few overs, maybe it would have been a different ball game.”