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‘Ready to play aggressive cricket even if it doesn’t bear fruits’

  • Sports Correspondent
  • 1 April, 2023 12:00 AM
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‘Ready to play aggressive cricket even if it doesn’t bear fruits’
Bangladesh players and officials pose for a photo with the trophy of T20I Cricket Series 2023 Bangladesh VS Ireland at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram on Friday. – BCB PHOTO

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Bangladesh pace bowler Taskin Ahmed said on Friday that they are ready to play aggressive cricket even if it doesn’t bear fruits on every occasion.

Ireland brought high-flying Bangladesh down to earth as they beat them by seven wickets in the last game of the three-match T20I series at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram.

Bangladesh, who posted 200-plus scores in the previous two games, tried to bat in the same aggressive manner but failed to come up with a similar result, courtesy of Irish bowling as they were all out for 124 runs in 19.2 overs after opting to bat first.

Ireland got over the host after removing in-form opener Liton Das (5) early and soon others followed him as Bangladesh were struggling at 41-5 after Rony Talukdar (14), Najmul Hossain Shanto (4), Shakib Al Hasan (6), Towhid Hridoy (12) fell cheaply against the disciplined Ireland bowling that trying to attack them a formula that is said to be the main mantra behind their recent success.

Middle-order batsman Shamim Hossain struck 51 off 42 balls to make his selection justified ahead of Afif Hossain but he failed to add any value that could help them post a total of 150 runs that could have been a challenging total for the host to defend.

Taskin, however, said that they are not ready to change their style of play.

“The wicket was good but unfortunately we lost quick wickets. Today, it was a bad day but everyone has the intent to play positively and aggressively,” Taskin told reporters after the game.

“Today, we might have collapsed batting wise but if we didn’t have such intent we couldn’t have scored 200 runs in two matches and that is the true and we must understand that. If we want to do well in T20s we have to have the intent and both bowlers and batsmen need to move forward with aggression,” he said.

“Someday we might collapse trying to show the intent and we will move forward accepting it because we won’t play cricket with any fear as we want to play cricket without fear of failure and in future, this will help (playing without fear of failure),” he said.

Taskin added that this mindset will help them against big teams.

“Everyone’s mindset was positive like hitting the first ball if that is in their zone and probably we had some mishit and it could be six on another day and this can happen and that is okay. In the future, we will play against big teams like Australia and England on a good wicket and there we have to score runs and this intent will help us,” he said.

“There can be a collapse but we won’t be changing our intensity. The management and the players have the same mentality and that is to play aggressively and if we can be fearless it will help us become a big team in the future,” he said, adding that they have learnt their lesson.

 “Suddenly, it won’t feel good to lose but unfortunately if there is a collapse or we fail we should not be changing the intensity as we would like to keep it going forward. We are thinking more about positive than negative,” he concluded.