T20 World Cup: ‘Would’ve Batted First vs India, But Skipper & Coach Did Otherwise’, Reveals Shakib

North Sound (Antigua): After suffering a 50-run defeat to India in their Super Eights match of 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup, veteran left-arm spin all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan said he would have preferred to see Bangladesh electing to bat first, instead of captain Najmul Hossain Shanto deciding to bowl.

“Personally if you ask me in the Caribbean it’s one or two games – when England chased that 180. Other than that batting first has been the trend for most of the teams and they have been very successful. So, if you look at the stats, ideally you would have batted first, but maybe the captain and coach thought otherwise,” said Shakib in the post-match press conference.

Asked on whether his viewpoint was taken in by the team management, Shakib replied he wasn’t. “No, I don’t have any part or role in this. These are not the issues of experience or seniority. When there is a leader, a captain, it’s his decision. If we would do well, the credit would go to the captain. If we did bad, we question the decision of the coach and captain. It’s normal. It seems very reasonable to me.

“But that’s how it goes. It’s how the game is played. If you could see that we took two wickets in the first two overs, then you would think that it was a good decision. Since there were no wickets in the first two overs, naturally we thought that it would be better if we were batting first in this wicket.

“We thought that we could restrict them in a reasonable way so that there is a score in our head and we know how we should go about when we bat. So maybe that’s the reason we decided to field first,” he elaborated.

Bangladesh also made another confusing call when they opted to open the bowling with Shakib and off-spinner Mahedi Hasan, instead of giving the ball to fast-bowler Mustafizur Rahman, who had a better match-up considering India openers Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have a weakness against left-arm pacers.

“Well, that’s difficult for me to explain. It’s the coach and captain’s decision. They make the decision who to bowl, when to bowl. So, it’s hard for me to explain. But from what I can understand, we thought that the wicket would be a little slower.

“It looked a little drier, maybe at the start of the game. So that’s why they thought that there might be some help for the spinners. So that’s why I think the captain decided to go with the spinners,” said Shakib.

Despite playing on a fresh pitch at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, chasing 197 was always going to be an uphill task for a middling Bangladesh batting line-up, who ended up at 146/8 and didn’t show attacking intent needed in acing tough targets. Shakib had no qualms in saying Bangladesh’s batting show left him disappointed.

“We have a 50 percent win rate in this World Cup but if we had fought against India and Australia the way we fought against South Africa, we could have called it a good World Cup campaign. We are short of runs as a batting unit. We made 140 in the last game, 146 here.

“We should have done better since we had a target in front of us. We couldn’t even show it to people that we were trying (to chase the target). I don’t think the confidence was there. We have lacked in this area throughout the World Cup. You have to bring your A-game against teams like Australia and India.

“I think we lacked in skill and strength. We couldn’t do the basics for longer periods to create pressure. Throughout this World Cup, I don’t think we justified ourselves as a batting unit. We are capable of scoring big runs. We were well short of par scores like 175-185 in the last two games, both played on good wickets.

“Maybe India scored 20 more runs but we have to show the intent from the start of the innings, and I don’t think it was there. We don’t really do well when we play on flat wickets that produce 180-200 runs. We play better on wickets that produce 130-150 runs. That’s what we are familiar with. Apart from one game in BPL this year, our local batters haven’t really chased big runs. It remains our weakness,” he concluded.