The top-order for Bangladesh is a concern, according
to head coach Chandika Hathurusingha, who encouraged patience with the new-look
opening combination on Tuesday.
Since Tamim Iqbal was unable to play in the World Cup,
Bangladesh has chosen Litton Kumar Das and Tanzid Hasan Tamim to lead the
innings. However, the opening tandem has struggled thus far, accumulating just
19 runs against Afghanistan and 14 runs against England. In Dharamsala, where
they were competing with six bowlers in the Starting XI, it harmed the squad even
more.
“It is a concern, we’ve not been scoring (as an
opening pair) but then Litton coming into form this game was a good positive
for us and then Tanzim scored runs in the two practice games so he was in form.
So, there are two failures. In the World Cup, it can happen for any team. So,
I’m hoping those two, those guys will fight because most of the batters now got
into form. And in the coming games, hopefully, we’ll perform as a group,”
he said, adding that they need to be patient with Tanzid.
“You’re right, he (Tanzid) got out two times. But
he was in the runs in the two practice games. He is just getting into
international cricket. If you judge someone with two innings, then Malan would
not be playing this game as well. So we have to be patient,” he said.
Hathurusingha added that he is disappointed with the
performance of their bowling unit which failed to live up to their reputation
against England. He added that the bowlers need to understand how to execute
their plans in the middle.
“I don’t think we made a mistake by bowling first
because the wicket had something. And especially it’s a 10:30 start, and then
yesterday, a little bit of rain. There was something on the wicket,” said
Hathurusingha.
“The fact was that we did not bowl good areas,
our lengths and lines were not good. We were a little disappointed with the way
we started. We could have bowled a little bit more onto the stumps, especially
in the first 10 overs. We came back well. Especially Shoriful, I thought was
very brave to bowl those variations when we were really under pressure. They
would have got 400 at one stage I thought. There are some positives but we
didn’t bowl well,” he said.