Bowlers win matches in T20Is. In modern-day cricket, it has been the most used phrase across the globe. For Bangladesh, it was the same case as well considering they progressed to the Super 8 in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup on the back of their combined bowling performance after repeated failure of their batting unit.

Bangladesh’s pace bowling trio – Mustafizur Rahman, Tanzim Hasan Sakib and Taskin Ahmed – picked up 23 wickets among themselves so far in the tournament before team management decided to add a batsman in the playing at the expense of Taskin in their do-or-die game against India at Barbados on Saturday.

This is the first time Bangladesh played with two pacers since they opted for a similar bowling attack against Zimbabwe in Harare 2022 and following that game, the Tigers always opted to have at least three pacers in their playing XI.

The decision to include Jaker Ali in place of Taskin raised quite a few eyebrows considering they had another left-arm pace bowler Shoriful Islam under their possession, who is yet to play a game in the T20 World Cup following his injury against India in the warm-up game ahead of the tournament.

Shoriful was expected to lead the bowling attack in the showpiece event as he was the most inform bowler for the country across the format ahead of the tournament. But his sudden injury forced him to warm the bench while Tanzim made his opportunity by bowling consistently well in the tournament.

However, the Tigers took a defensive approach by including only two pacers against India in the Super Eight game and would be regretting the decision after Tanzim removed both Virat Kohli and Surya Kumar Yadav in his second over.

Shakib, however, removed Rohit Sharma (23) but by then India got a flying start as they put 39 runs inside four overs.

Bangladesh’s decision to include Jaker Ali could have been justified if they had opted to take him in place of out-of-form Liton Das and allow the former to keep behind the wickets.

In that case, Bangladesh wouldn’t have to compromise with their bowling strength and variety but the team management exposed a defensive and questionable mindset that raised the question – did they really have enough faith in their pacers although they were the ones to take them this far in the tournament?

Former England skipper and cricket analyst Michael Vaughan didn’t shy away from criticising the move on his official Twitter account.

“So Bangladesh win the toss and bowl in a day game!!!! Opens with two spinners against incredible players of spinners against incredible spinners of spin. Don’t use Fizz when both of them struggled against left-arm seamers… how very very very odd..,” Vaughan said in his X account.