Tigers may opt for different strategy against England
Bangladesh's ploy to field five specialist bowlers in the line-up in their first game of the ICC ODI World Cup against Afghanistan worked well as they manage to bundle out the opposition for 156 runs before winning by six wickets.
With Mahmudullah Riyad the sixth bowling option, it was a stiff task for the bowling unit to execute their game plan against the Afghan batters.
The pacers had a torrid time in the beginning with the two Afghanistan openers -- Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran – putting on 47 runs in eight overs as Taskin Ahmed and Shoriful Islam failed to make an impact.
However, the spin of Shakib Al Hasan and Mehedi Hasan Miraz stemmed the run-flow and gave the team the breakthroughs while Mustafizur Rahman used his experience to good effect.
"We tried but things didn't go well for us at the start and it can happen. We may not be able to start well upfront in every game. The captain said that we needed to keep things tight and we opted for the short-ball strategy. When that didn't work, we changed our strategy again," Shoriful told the media yesterday.
It will be a bigger challenge for the men in red and green when they take on England in their second game on October 10 at the same venue. Shoriful hinted that they will come up with a different plan, considering the opposition.
"It's too early to comment on what sort of plan we will go with against England. Against Afghanistan we thought that one of us would a wicket and change the game. We had the belief in ourselves and we never panicked," the pacer added.
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