India captain Rohit Sharma said on Wednesday that ineffective bowling in the middle overs combined with the batsmen’s inability to build partnerships led to the visitors’ demise in Bangladesh’s three-match ODI series. India lost by five runs in the second ODI at Mirpur on Wednesday to surrender the three-match series 0-2. “When you lose a game there are positives and negatives. From 69/6 it wasn’t a big effort from our bowlers to get them to 270. We started well but the middle overs and the backend is what did us a lot of pain. Also happened in the last game. It’s something we need to work on,” said a disappointed Rohit at the post-match presentation ceremony.
On the batting front, he said: “One-Day Cricket is about partnerships and when you get those you have to make sure they turn into partnerships to win matches. That’s what they did.
“When you get those 70-run standings, you have to turn them into 110-120-run partnerships for the team to win games, as it’s not easy for the new batter. You have to be braver in the middle,” he added.
Invited to bowl, India had Bangladesh on the mat at 69 for six before the hero of the previous match, Miraz (100 off 83 balls), tied an epic 148-run partnership off 165 balls with Mahmudullah (77 off 96) to take the bring hosts to a battle total.
“Not taking anything away from Mehidy and Mahmudullah has been a great partnership, but we also need to find ways to break such partnerships,” said Rohit.
The skipper also revealed that there are some injury concerns for India ahead of Saturday’s third ODI.
“There is little worry about injuries, we need to get to the bottom of this. We need to try to keep an eye on them because it’s important to understand this.
“If they come to play for India, they have to be more than 100 per cent. We have to keep an eye on their workload because we can’t have guys come and play half fit for the country,” said Rohit.
Rival captain Litton Das was ecstatic after winning his first series as skipper.
“Very happy, to win in my first bout as captain, it feels good,” he said.
“We thought 240-250 was a good score. We were under pressure but they (Mahmudullah and Mehidy) were brilliant. I don’t know what their conversations were but what they did was just fantastic.
“I wanted to rotate my main bowlers because it was a good delivery in the second half, so I couldn’t afford to bowl too many of my main bowlers in the beginning. The focus for the next game will also be on winning ,” added that.
Miraz, who won his second consecutive Player of the Match award, thanked the Almighty and said his hard work over the past few years is finally paying off.
“Over the past few years I’ve been working hard on the batter and focusing on certain areas to improve,” he said.
“My coaches gave me a lot of information to improve my game. Riyad Bhai (Mahmudullah) kept telling me to keep playing deep into the innings and the talks were mostly about keeping small targets from partnerships.
“I just tried to hit the good spots with the ball and put pressure on them.”
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