Same old excuses after another India drubbing

Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto put forth the same old worn out excuses of 'not executing plans' and 'poor wickets at home' as reasons for the utter humiliation at the hands of India in the final T20I of the three-match series in Hyderabad yesterday, which ended in a crushing 133-run defeat.

As the margin of the defeat suggests, it was a total mismatch between the sides at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium with India doubling down on the dominance they had shown in the previous two T20Is with a victory that showed just how far ahead the reigning T20 world champions are compared to the Tigers.

India, who had rested several of their marquee names in the series, had already asserted their superiority over Bangladesh with wins by seven wickets and 86 runs in the first two T20Is, respectively.

But the hosts were only revving up their T20 engine which went into overdrive in the third T20I and steamrolled the Tigers, crushing them under the humungous total of 297-6.

Opener Sanju Samson put on an exhibition, both caressing and hammering the ball to the boundary in a scintillating 111 off 47 balls which featured 11 fours and eight sixes.

Captain Suryakumar Yadav (75 off 35), Hardik Pandya (47 off 18) and Riyan Parag (34 off 13) also treated the thousands of home fans at the stands with a plethora of boundaries while the Bangladesh bowlers looked on helplessly, out of ideas and devoid of any inspiration to stop the Indian barrage.

In reply, Towhid Hridoy remained not out on 63 off 42 balls and Liton Das made 42 off 25 balls but that did little to hide Bangladesh's blushes in the match.

"We didn't play our best cricket," skipper Shanto, looking totally defeated, said after the match.

"We didn't execute our plans as a batting unit. We bowled well for a couple of overs in some matches but today [Saturday] we didn't bowl well," he added.

Shanto, who about a month ago was beaming after leading Bangladesh to a historic 2-0 Test series sweep over Pakistan, is now seeing the other side of the coin, having lost the two-Test series against India 2-0 before the 3-0 drubbing in the T20Is.

Yesterday, Bangladesh did get an early breakthrough after they were sent to bowl first, with Tanzim Sakib getting opener Abhishek Sharma out for four in the second over.

But after that, Samson and Suryakumar went after the Bangladesh bowlers. They took a liking to the aerial route as they comfortably cleared the ropes on numerous occasions.

India hit a staggering 22 sixes in the innings, but when it was Bangladesh's turn to dish out some punishment, they could clear the ropes only four times, three of which came off the bat of Hridoy.

A lack of skills, poor planning and dearth of belief have been evident throughout the series in the Bangladesh camp. Shanto urged his players to acknowledge the shortcomings and take responsibility. "We need to believe in ourselves that we can compete against any team. We need to change our home wickets and the players need to take responsibilities."