Bangladesh beat Afghanistan by 8 runs in a gripping contest

The Afghanistan Bangladesh contest was critical for both sides in this Asia Cup with a chance of cementing a place in the Super Four up for grabs. It was a contest between an Afghanistan that is looking for its batting legs and a young Bangladesh team who are finally playing like a modern T20 side.

Bangladesh pulled through by a narrow margin of 8 runs, defending a middling total of 154 in the second innings. The win was courtesy of their spin duo of Rishad Hossain and Nasum Ahmed, and their death overs veteran Mustafizur Rahman, who contributed with 3 important lower-order wickets.

Batting woes for Bangladesh on a gripping Dubai Pitch

Both teams had their fair share of woes on a pitch that initially looked batting friendly when Bangladesh took a flying start to the game. Tanzid Hasan with his half century was the only Bangladeshi top or middle order batter who took an aggressive approach towards Afghan bowlers. The rest of the Bangladeshi lineup looked clueless while the Afghan spinners choked out their runs.

Bangladesh scored 59 runs in the first 6 overs and got off to a flying start in the powerplay but only managed to score another 95 runs for the loss of 5 wickets in the rest of the innings. The middle overs was dominated by the Afghan spinner duo of Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmed who delivered with efficient spells of 2-26 and 2-23 respectively. 

Other than Tanzid in the powerplay and Nurul Hasan at the death, the Bangladeshi batters seemed to be all too comfortable to go back to anchoring the innings. This strategy only slowed them down and led them to losing more wickets to the Afghani spinners in the middle overs. Bangladesh put up a middling score of 154 runs on the board that they’d need to bowl quite well to defend in the second innings. 

Afghanistan bled some runs on the field due to some shoddy fielding on their part. While they did hold on to their catches, their fielding led to them conceding some runs on the field. Runs that would have been handy considering that they only lost the match by 8 runs. Afghanistan need to work on their powerplay bowling and their fielding if they want to tighten the chokehold that their spinners lay out for them.

Bangladeshi spinners run through Afghan top order

The very first ball of the second innings got Sediqallah Atal trapped plum in front of the stumps by Nasum Shah. This set the precedent for the rest of the innings as the Afghan top order lapsed to the finger spin of Nasum Shah who always kept the stumps in play and the wrist spin of Rishad Hossain. 

Much like the Bangladeshis, the Afghan batters tried to go back to anchoring the innings and tried to go for singles and twos rather than boundaries. This only increased the pressure as Afghanistan got to 27/2 after the powerplay. As pressure grew, Bangladesh seem to tighten their web of spin around the Afghan batters who could not hold their own against the pressure and were not able to score runs at a secure rate.

Afghanistan’s instinct to anchor the innings took over, and their batters did not try to go for boundaries. Losing further wickets only slowed them down, so that after the spinners were done with their overs, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed finished the job, taking the remaining wickets in the latter half of the innings.

Among the batters, only Azmatullah Omarzai and Rashid Khan tried to hit out at the death, but by that time, they had lost too many wickets to the Bangladeshi bowlers. Bangladesh tried to bowl part-timers like Shamim Hossain and Saif Hassan because the pitch was providing assistance to spinners, but Omarzai targeted them for boundaries. 

Low-scoring batting plagued both teams, as they were bailed out by their bowling attacks. Afghanistan and Bangladesh both seemed to go back to their anchoring batting tactics in their batting innings when they faced pressure. Both bowling units shined, and Bangladesh were triumphant mainly due to their powerplay hitting and taking wickets early in the second innings. 

To advance further in the tournament need to look into their batting and trying to make it more aggressive if they want to compete against top sides such as India. Afghanistan need to win their game against Srilanka to qualify for the Super Fours which is a tough contest waiting for them.