I don't know why says Bashar
by Sa'adi Thawfeeq
Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar was at a loss for words after his
side collapsed sensationally on the first day of the first cricket Test
against Sri Lanka at the R. Premadasa Stadium yesterday.
"I don't know what happened. We keep doing the same mistakes from
time to time. Even in the one-dayers we were 50-1 and then suddenly
55-6. I think it must be lack of experience," said Bashar.
Bangladesh at one time riding on Bashar's attractive knock of 84 off
96 balls were happily placed at 155-2 before crashing to 188 all out. By
the close Sri Lanka had replied with 160-3.
"Our coach keeps telling at us that when things get tough we should
fight it out. There is something definitely wrong. All the batsmen
played bad shots and got out. Sri Lanka has got some world-class
bowlers, but to lose eight wickets for 33 runs is not acceptable," said
Bashar.
He refused to point a finger at one of his successful batsmen
Mohammed Ashraful for triggering the collapse.
"Batsmen do play bad shots and get out, but I don't blame Ashraful
for the bad batting. He may have started a collapse but there are six
batsmen in the side and everyone has to score runs," he said.
Bashar said that with the pitch assisting spinners they were happy to
snare three Sri Lanka wickets before the close.
"Mahela (Jayawardene) is batting well. He is in top form. If we can
get either Mahela or Tilan (Samaraweera) in the morning, we have a very
good chance to get back into this game," said Bashar.
Spinners brought us back - Moody
Coach Tom Moody said that the spinners brought Sri Lanka back into
the game after poor bowling in the morning session.
""It was pleasing to see Rangana (Herath) get a good bowl and bowl
well. We managed to put pressure on them and restrict them. It's nice to
have control of the game after day one although we did the hard
way,"said Moody.
"It's been a funny wicket. Leading upto lunch it looked like a pretty
flat batting track. Then after lunch it's like the roller had worn off
and the wicket started to become more and more difficult to bat on. It's
not what you expect for a day one Test wicket," he said.
"There's quite a bit of turn and inconsistency. Batting is not easy
and I thought even though a couple of batsmen got in they'll be
disappointed that they didn't push on and get a bigger score. We had to
work very hard for our runs. I don't think it's particularly a good
wicket," Moody said.
Sri Lanka according to Moody was looking to get some consistency into
the batting order using the Bangladesh series. It is an area he said
that they had identified as being inconsistent during the West Indies
series. But however their plans have been somewhat thwarted by the state
of the pitch.
"A wicket like this stems the flow of the game. You don't see the
game taking its natural path.
There is a lot of pace in the wicket for the quick bowlers and for
the spinners it is starting to turn considerably," said Moody. |