We can still reach the final, says Bangladesh captain

Dubai - The Bangladesh skipper blamed his batsmen for Friday's defeat to India

Despite their meek surrender to India, Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza believes it's still possible for his team to qualify for the Asia Cup final.
"It's a very disappointing defeat, but we're not out of the tournament. We still have two matches left. We have to find positives, identify the mistakes and come back hard," Mortaza told reporters after Bangladesh's seven-wicket defeat to India in their first Super Four game at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Friday.
Of course, they can the reach the final next Friday, but they need to win back-to-back games against Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"If we can beat Afghanistan on Sunday, I believe we can be confident of our chances against Pakistan in our final Super Four game," Mortaza said.
The Bangladesh skipper then blamed his batsmen for Friday's defeat to India.
After their openers Liton Das (7) and Nazmul Hossain Shanto (7) threw their wickets away, the middle-order looked clueless against the experienced Indian attack.
Even Shakib Al Hasan, their best batsman, was guilty of playing a poor shot after hitting two boundaries in Ravindra Jadeja's first over.
"The way we lost wickets wasn't good, we kept losing wickets to rash shots. After losing two wickets maybe we should have focused on building a partnership and then we could have taken off," Mortaza admitted.
"In fact, we lost back-to-back matches against Afghanistan and India for our batting failure. When you lose early wickets, it puts pressure on the middle order. I think our middle-order should have tried to stay longer," he added.
"Against India, Shakib looked good, but got out to a poor shot in the wrong time. Then (Mohammad) Mithun also couldn't last long.
"If you look at the dismissals, almost all our top-order batsmen got out while trying to play shots. Actually they should have tried to play according to the situation because we have lost two wickets very early.
"If our middle-order batsmen had tried to build some partnerships, we could have put up a total of 250 on this wicket. And the match could have been different," he said.
Mortaza was especially unhappy with the openers as both Liton and Nazmul were unable to handle the new-ball pressure. "It was nothing like 'we have to score 60 in the first 10 overs," said Mortaza, taking a dig at his openers' approach.
"Facing the new ball from both ends becomes easier after taking a little time. What we've done in recent times is scoring 40-45 runs without losing any wicket or 30-35 runs in case of an early wicket-loss."
rituraj@khaleejtimes.com
 

• Asia Cup 2019