Tigers vow to bounce back in Afghanistan ODI series

Putting aside Tamim Iqbal's sudden retirement issue, Bangladesh want to make a comeback in the three-match ODI against Afghanistan when they take on the visitors in the crucial second game on Saturday at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram.

The match which starts at 2 PM will be aired live on Gazi TV and T-sports.

The second game in fact turned out to be 'do or die' match for Bangladesh after they lost the first ODI by 17 runs through DLS method. A defeat means Bangladesh will loss the series with a match to go.

A series defeat at the hands of Afghanistan will be a big blow for the Tigers, considering their invincible record at home and the upcoming World Cup. Since 2015, Bangladesh lost only two series at home-both times at the hands of World Champions England.

But the record looked to be at stake, specially after the retirement of Captain Tamim Iqbal that not only left cricket fraternity at shocked state, but also made the players hugely emotional.

According to the BCB President Nazmul Hassan Papon, a sudden retirement of a captain in the midst of a series is always a mental distraction. It is to see how Bangladesh players overcome the shocking incident to get them back on track.

Bangladesh's batting debacle was the chief reason behind their defeat in the first game. Before the rain reduced the game to 43 overs, they were restricted to 169-9 and most of the batters, including Tamim Iqbal played wretched shots to dig their own graveyards. Tamim scored just 13 in his last International game.

Afghanistan which was trounced by a record 546-run in the one-off Test, played a calculative cricket, keeping the rain in mind. Concentrating on not losing too many wickets, they reached 83-2 in 21.4 overs before rain again arrived to spoil the match. But by then, they were 17 runs ahead on DLS method.

The question now rose can Bangladesh make a turnaround following the batting debacle and Tamim's retirement issue.

Just after the first game, when Tamim still was in the helm, youngster Towhid Hridoy looked to be oozed with confidence despite the defeat.

According to him, the defeat is just a one-off incident as they are able to make a strong comeback.

"I believe we can make a strong comeback from here. I feel we made some silly mistakes in the first game and if we could rectify those, there is no reason that we can't win the second game," Hridoy said in Chattogram. 

"I don't think the wicket was very difficult but initially as the ball was keeping low it became a problem and it had two kind of bounce. If we could have done better with the bat then the outcome would have been totally different. Overall our batting was not good."

Following Tamim's retirement a change in the side is must. Bangladesh had already drafted Rony Talukdar in Tamim's place and Liton Das who is the vice-captain for this series will lead the side in the rest of the two matches.

Those decisions were taken in an emergency meeting of the BCB, held almost on last midnight. After the meeting, the BCB president also asked Tamim Iqbal to reconsider his hasty retirement call.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan coach Jonathon Trott was pleased with his spinners' performance and hoped that they would continue their good run to wrap up the series with a match to spare.

"I think the decision to come here after Bangladesh have played a lot of good ODI cricket recently, was good. To play with Bangladesh in Bangladesh is always tricky. Our seamers didn't bowl as well we could have with the new ball, after deciding to bowl first winning the toss. But then our spinners were excellent," he said.

"The quality of our spinners shone through, on a wicket that we thought would seam more than it spun for us."

Trott, however, said Fazalhaq Farooqi who claimed 3-24 to be adjudged man of the match in the first game would be fit enough ahead of the second match.

Farooqi was unable to bowl his last two deliveries due to muscle strain.

Bangladesh squad:

Tamim Iqbal (capt), Liton Das, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Towhid Hridoy, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Hasan Mahmud, Shoriful Islam, Afif Hossain and Naim Sheikh

Afghanistan squad:

Hashmatullah Shahidi (captain), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdul Rahman, Shahidullah, Zia-ur-Rehman, Wafadar Momand, Mohammad Saleem and Sayed Shirzad. 

Source: BSS