Mashrafe Mortaza praised Tamim Iqbal for his brilliant 95-run knock. (Source: Reuters)
Bangladesh managed to avoid their second consecutive loss in the Champions Trophy, as rain-gods proved to be their saviour and the match against Australia was called off. Australia needed 100 more runs to register their first win of the tournament but rain arrived with the team’s score at 83/1 in 16 overs. Earlier, Bangladesh were bowled out for 182 in 44.3 overs after a brilliant collective effort by the Australian bowlers. Mitchell Starc took 4 for 29 in his 8.3 overs.
Bangladesh got an advantage after the match being washed out. They got a crucial point which gives them a bleak chance of making it to the semi-finals. Regarding their chances, Bangladesh captain Mashrage Mortaza feels, “Well no one knows, in World Cup 2015 we got an extra point against Australia and we went into the quarterfinals, we know that we have to beat New Zealand to get into the semi-finals and we’ll try our best to do that and wait for the other results to turn in our favour.”
Mashrafe, after the match, said that they knew it would be difficult to play against Australia. “We knew it’s going to be difficult playing against Australia, they bowled really well and only Tamim Iqbal was able to perform apart from all the other batsmen,” he said.
Bangladesh have played two matches in the tournament and lost one of them. On being asked about the comparison between Australia and England, Mortaza said, “Both the teams have brilliant pace attack were effective with the ball but I feel with more pace and controlled length, Australian bowling attack was better, as we saw Starc picking up four straight wickets in his spell.”
Mortaza feels that they were lucky in Monday’s match as Australia dominated them in every department, he said, “It is a part of the game and you can’t do anything about it. The same thing happened with New Zealand in the last match when they were in a commanding position and Australia got lucky to seal a point.”
Mortaza also praised Tamim Iqbal for his brilliant 95-run knock which helped Bangladesh to reach near 200-mark, he said, “Tamim has performed consistently well for us including back to back centuries in his past 3-4 innings. He also performed well in the practice matches.”
