‘WRONG SHOT SELECTION’

Rangpur Riders’ spin bowling coach Mohammad Rafique on Friday attributed his team’s batting collapse against Noakhali Express to “wrong shot selection,” pointing to recurring issues in the powerplay and middle overs during the ongoing BPL at Sylhet International Stadium.

Noakhali, after being put into bat first, posted 148 in 19.5 overs, with Rangpur’s bowlers, including a late hat-trick from Mrittunjoy Chowdhury, doing enough to set a competitive total. However, Rangpur’s chase faltered, and they fell short by nine runs, handing Noakhali their first win of the season in seven attempts.

Rafique said the batting failures were avoidable. “No, what I was saying is that today we saw clearly how we got out — you all saw it. We got out playing wrong shot selections,” he said. “On paper, the team doesn’t actually look bad. It only looks bad on the field. That’s where we are behind.”

He pointed to the powerplay as a recurring weakness. “The number one issue is that we haven’t been able to do well in the powerplay in every match. Then you can see that in the middle overs, scoring runs has been a bit tough in places. It’s clear that our batting has been very poor,” Rafique said.

Despite the loss against a lower-ranked team, Rafique remained optimistic about the Riders’ prospects. “We are suffering a bit, but from there what we are trying to do has been quite good. Actually, this is part of the game. You can’t really say otherwise. Even big teams sometimes get caught out by smaller teams,” he said.

“Nothing is completely lost — not everything is gone. So we won’t stop or play in a defensive way. These boys — the more time they get, the better they will become. There is still a lot of work to be done,” he said. “You can talk looking forward. Alhamdulillah, you see, you can’t judge everything from just one or two matches or one tournament.”

Rafique, a former left-arm spinner himself, also spoke about nurturing young talent like left-arm spinner Rakibul Hasan, who is playing for Rangpur this season. “If you want to build a player’s journey, you have to give time. And once you take that time and pick someone, you also have to give him time there. Then you will get something from me,” he said.