Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan has revealed that their aim in their recent ODI World Cup match against Sri Lanka was to chase down the target of 280 inside 42 overs to improve their net run-rate and get ahead in the race to seal a Champions Trophy spot. Bangladesh are already out of contention for the 2023 World Cup semi-finals, but they are still playing to ensure a top-eight finish, which would guarantee them a spot in the 2025 Champions Trophy to be held in Pakistan.
After losing their openers early, Bangladesh made an excellent recovery through Najmul Hossain Shanto (90) and Shakib (82), who added 169 runs for the third wicket to put their team on course for a comfortable chase.
“When we lost two wickets, we had to rebuild,” Shakib Al Hasan said in response to a CricketNext query. “We know the wicket is good. We had to bat deep, make a partnership and that will ease a lot of pressure. That’s exactly what we did and when we had opportunity we capitalized, we counterattacked them, put a lot of pressure back on them because it wasn’t an easy pitch to bat on.”
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“Also, dew was helping us a lot. So, we know that ball was coming onto the bat, we had to just bat deep. During the 17th and 18th over, we were just saying that if we bat till the 30th over, we can take the game close to the finishing like and if one of us stays, we can finish it early,” he added.
However, the dismissals of Namul and Shakib in the space of 14 deliveries triggered a collapse as Bangladesh lost five wickets for 59 runs to slip from 210/2 to 269/7.
Towhid Hridoy though struck a couple of sixes to prevent a dramatic turnaround as Bangladesh overhauled the target in 41.1 overs to win by three wickets and climb up to the seventh spot on the points table.
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“And after that, when we lost a couple of quick wickets, myself and Shanto got out. We still were looking to chase it in 41.2 overs or something that will get us ahead of, I think, a couple of the teams. That’s what we are looking to do. Trying to do that cost us some wickets. But in the end, very happy the way we played,” he said.
Bangladesh will now take on Australia in their final match of the competition on Saturday.
