Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto thinks poor batting cost them the match today against Afghanistan in the Super Eight of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 on Tuesday (June 25)

Bangladesh lost to Afghanistan by 8 runs (DLS method) in a breathtaking match in St Vincent. After being asked to bowl first, Bangladesh bowled really well and restricted Afghanistan to 115 runs in 20 overs. In the chase, Bangladesh had a chance but they kept losing wickets regularly while at the other end, Litton Das kept fighting but they lost the match despite his fight.

Bangladesh lost 3 wickets early in the powerplay and then they failed in the middle overs as Rashid ripped apart the middle-order with his bowling. Bangladesh were stuttering on 81-7 and needing of 35 to win with 3 wickets in hands. Litton was fighting single handedly on a tough deck and brought up a fabulous fifty in fashion but he was out of assistance from the other batters.  Naveen then came in to take both the tailenders out and help Afghanistan to progress for the semifinal.

“I think we bowled really well, we did lots of good things but as a batting unit, we made poor decision especially in the middle overs and that's what cost us today. The plan was to go hard in the first six overs, but we lost wickets in the powerplay and the middle-order couldn't execute,” Shanto said.

Shanto adds that they did well with bowling throughout the whole tournament but failed massively in batting by taking wrong decision. He also praises spinner Rishad Hossain, who is now the joint third highest wicket-taker in the tournament. The whole tournament we have bowled really well, both the pacers and the spinners, especially Rishad the new guy, the fast bowlers also did really well. Also, as a fielding group, we did well. The batting needs to improve, the top-order didn't perform well. It can happen, the ball got wet and that's a good thing. As I said, we didn't execute well with the bat and made a lot of wrong decisions,” Shanto added.