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‘We can’t play better cricket than this’

  • Sports Correspondent
  • 30 March, 2023 12:00 AM
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‘We can’t play better cricket than this’
Bangladesh opener Liton Das celebrates after scoring a half-century against Ireland during the second T20I match at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram on Wednesday. – BCB PHOTO

Bangladesh opener Liton Das claimed that they are playing their best version of cricket at the moment.
The Tigers continued to break record after record as on Wednesday, they registered a 77-run win over Ireland in the rain-curtailed 17-over contest to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series.
Before the series, Bangladesh whitewashed current T20 World Cup winners England in a three-match series while they started the Ireland series with a 2-0 series win in the preceding ODI series.
Liton struck his career-best knock of 83 off 41 balls and put up a record-breaking stand of 124 runs with Rony Talukdar (44 off 23 balls) in the opening stand as Bangladesh posted a colossal total of 202-3 after being sent into bat first.
Shakib Al Hasan then finished with 5-22 while pacer Taskin Ahmed also claimed 3-27 as the hosts restricted the visitors to 125-9 to clinch their fifth successive win in this format.
“As a group, we are playing really good cricket, be it batting, bowling, or fielding. I don’t know if you can play better cricket than this,” Liton told reporters after the game during the post-match press conference.
“We will obviously try to keep up with this and if we can keep it up, the results will come our way. But expecting better cricket than this is difficult, as you can’t score 70-80 in powerplay every day in T20s,” he said.
“If we can do this every day, or we can even hit 60 in the powerplay, I think it’s really good.
“Obviously, we get into the field to win the game. I think we have played well in the last two games and could play the brand of cricket that we wanted to play,” he added.
Liton, who also broke Mohammad Ashraful’s quickest fifty record for Bangladesh in the shorter format during the innings, however, rued for missing his maiden T20I ton.
Liton completed his fifty off 18 balls during the second T20I against Ireland on Wednesday while Ashraful previously held the fastest fifty record after scoring fifty off 20 balls against West Indies in 2007.
“It feels good (to break the record of the fastest fifty). I have said before that I never think about records,” said Liton.
“I felt like I was rushing too much. Spinners were also doing really well during the middle overs and the wicket was helping them. If I had taken more time to play the pacers, I guess it would have been 100 instead of 83. Yes, it feels good, but it would feel better if it was 100,” he said.
Meanwhile, Liton also said that he is enjoying opening the innings with Rony while HE added that there is no point talking about their past struggles rather everyone should be focusing on how far they can take their good time.
‘I think this is the highest partnership in the opening stand (for Bangladesh). Things can’t get any bigger than this. You won’t get this much success in every match either, or we won’t just get to the wicket and start hitting every day,” he said.
“There will be struggles, but I am having fun batting with him (Rony),” said Liton.