Mominul: We failed to cope with wicket, opposition bowling

Bangladesh Test captain Mominul Haque said failure to cope with the wicket and opposition bowling resulted in the batting debacle and the 17-run defeat against the West Indies at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka Sunday.

Bangladesh with the defeat conceded a 2-0 series whitewash to a less experienced opposition despite being in a situation to grab a win. 

Going into the fourth day, hosts Bangladesh restricted the Windies to a small total in the second innings, and had 230 runs to chase.

Bangladesh got off to a strong start with openers Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar producing a 59-run stand, which was followed by a dreadful batting failure. 

Lower-order batsman Mehedi Hasan Miraz struck some lusty blows but could not take the team to the shore.

“The wicket was not difficult to bat on in all four days and when you are playing international cricket, you have to cope with the wicket irrespective of how the wicket behaves. It did not have too much bounce. Their bowlers Rahkeem Cornwall got some bounce because of his height. We should have coped with it but we could not for which the second Test also slipped away from us,” said Mominul to the media following the game.

Bangladesh came into the final match of the series on the back of a three-wicket loss in the first Test in Chittagong. 

The home side had most parts of the match in control in the port city till Windies batsman Kyle Mayers produced a record unbeaten 210 and the visitors chased down 395 runs on day five of the game.

When queried if he was surprised with the turn of the situation in Dhaka too, Mominul said, “Not really. They were ahead in the first innings but in the second we made a comeback with some good bowling. Then we had Tamim and Soumya get us off to a good start but we lost two or three quick wickets which got us on the back foot. Miraz fought well at the end but we lost our way in the middle and could not come back.”