Tigers celebrating with pacer Hasan Mahmud. Photo: BCB
Mustafizur Rahman turned hero with a four-for but Hasan Mahmud was the hero of the final over as Ireland needed to score 10 runs to win the match. The youngster bowled magnificently, bagging two wickets in that final over and nailing the yorkers and back of the hand deliveries when the team needed him most. Skipper Tamim Iqbal reserved special praise for his pace star.
The performance under pressure left Tamim impressed. “Hasan is world-class at the moment. Specially with the new ball he has been amazing but also at the death. He’s a very young guy but very calm under pressure. It’s a great learning curve for him. You can bowl thousand balls in practice but to deliver under this kind of pressure is something else,” the skipper told reporters at a press conference after the five-wicket win against Ireland.
The balance of the game swung from one side to the other and while Ireland were cruising along in chase of Bangladesh’s 274 at one point, the game shifted dramatically. Bangladesh have had to deal with losing matches from winning positions in the past. Tamim was happy to be on the other side of things.
“Today’s game was a very special game for me. We have always seen these situations from the other side where we were in a winning position and somehow lost the game. Very rarely we win in these situations. The confidence the bowling team will get from this victory is incredible. Really happy for all the bowlers as they did the job perfectly. Wasn’t easy defending 274 on this ground,” he said.
The batting left room for improvement. Batters got starts but could not carry on while Tamim himself could not carry on to make a bigger score. Winning both the last two ODIs from tight positions meant the skipper was taking many positives from the series.
“I think we could bat a little better especially given the situation we were in today. In the first 25 overs we were almost dominating, scoring almost at six an over but we couldn’t finish well. We should have scored minimum 310 to 315 runs.
“When you are a batter short, everyone needs to take a little responsibility and it starts with me and then everyone. That is one area where we could be better. But overall, I am very happy from this series. We haven’t succeeded in many 300-plus chases. We did that once in this series and also haven’t defended a game like this before today. If the ratio is to be measured, there are a lot of positives,” he said.
