'First 10 overs went wrong'

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza cut a despondent figure at the post-match press conference after the series-levelling 70-run loss at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground yesterday. The loss of the opportunity to win a first-ever series against Sri Lanka and a rare away series was disappointing enough, but it must have been doubly disappointing to have lost the match after feeling at the halfway point that they had done what he said before the match was required to get across the line. But the score at the halfway stage was pretty much all that went to plan.

The day before the match, on Friday, Mashrafe had said that the key would be keeping Sri Lanka below 300, and restrict them to 270 or 280. That is exactly what they did; Sri Lanka scored 280 for nine in 50 overs on a good pitch after being 76 for no loss in the first 10 overs. 

But in the chase, Bangladesh were reduced to 11 for three with returning swing specialist Nuwan Kulasekara getting rid of Tamim Iqbal and Sabbir Rahman while Suranga Lakmal dispatched Mushfiqur Rahim for a first-ball duck.

“If you had asked me before the match, I'd have said I was more than happy to chase 260-270 on this sort of wicket. They changed their game with the two fast bowlers,” Mashrafe said. “It was hard to come back from 11 for three but I think Shakib [Al Hasan] and Soumya [Sarkar] had a chance after getting set. I think Shakib got tired. He was cramping. We didn't get any partnerships after their stand broke.”

Mashrafe had also said before the match that executing their plans would be crucial.

“I think our batting and bowling in the first 10 overs went wrong,” Mashrafe said. “We weren't successful with our plan in the first 10 overs but overall, I think we left a gap of 20 runs which cost us. But I still feel we should have chased down 280.”

Mashrafe won the toss for the first time since the New Zealand series in January, but it may have been a toss he would have preferred losing in hindsight. Seeing the grass on the pitch, and with rain forecast, Mashrafe chose to field, but whatever advantage the pitch may have provided was negated by wayward bowling. 

“You can say both,” Mashrafe said when asked whether it was the grass on the pitch or the possibility of rain that made him want to field first. “When we played the practice match, we understood that in Colombo the wicket becomes flatter in the second half. They perhaps made 20 runs too much, but if you followed [Mehedi Hasan] Miraz's batting you could see clearly that the wicket didn't have anything. Perhaps the new balls swung from both ends but if Soumya and Shakib could have dragged on their partnership a bit further and if the next two batsmen could have made bigger contributions, we could have won the game.

“I don't know if it was nervousness [in the first ten overs],” Mashrafe said when asked about the run haemorrhage in the first 10. “We used five bowlers during that period. We were not as disciplined as we were in the first two games. I think we tried a few more things because we weren't getting what we wanted early on. We didn't judge the wicket properly in regards to our areas.”

An ODI series draw in Sri Lanka is still a good result, but what will rankle a team that has started to take pride in their execution of plans is that yesterday, they failed to execute most of them.

“The whole team is disappointed. It is true that it doesn't end here. We have a lot of cricket coming up in Ireland and then we have the Champions Trophy.”