Bangladesh have achieved their best ever results in the main stage of the T20 World Cup as they have clinched two wins in a single edition by defeating Netherlands and Zimbabwe in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup in Australia.
Skipper Shakib al Hasan has mentioned earlier in the tournament that they want to achieve something that no other Bangladesh team have achieved in previous seven editions. And technically they have done it by winning two as prior to that Bangladesh only won once, back in 2007, in their T20 World Cup history.
Although those two wins came as narrow victories and both the game went to the last over. It was expected that Bangladesh would have won those games with a bigger margin but the reality was Tigers had to work really hard to beat their counterparts who are way behind in the ICC T20I rankings.
Pace bowlers have performed impressively in these two wins but there are lots of areas to improve for batters.
The batting has not clicked properly yet and in the second game against South Africa it was actually a disaster.
One of the major problems Bangladesh batters are facing in T20 cricket is conceding dot balls. This is something Bangladesh has been suffering for so long and that has not been fixed yet.
Even in the first three games Bangladesh batters have given plenty of dot balls which look weird in T20 cricket.
Scoring quick runs in the death overs is another problem Bangladesh have been facing for so long. For example, in the last game against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh scored just 30 runs in the last four overs and from a good position ended their innings on 150 in the 20 overs.
Bangladesh had managed to take 6 runs in the 17th over, 5 runs in the 18th over, 12 runs in the 19th over and just 5 runs in the 20th over.
Even in the powerplay Bangladesh managed to score just 32 runs against Zimbabwe losing two wickets and gave 19 dot balls among the first 36 deliveries.
Bangladesh have Yasir Ali, Mosaddek Hossian and Nurul Hasan Sohan as number six, seven and eight and these batters need to lift the tempo when the team needs quick runs.
Pacers, led by Taskin Ahmed, have performed well in these three matches but they need to be more clinical to wrap up the game as soon as possible when opposition is under pressure.
One of the few positive notes from a nail-biting win was Mustafizur Rahman's bowling. The left hander was out of form before the World cup and even lost his place in the playing eleven. But the team management kept his faith in him in the super 12 games and he bowled well in these three matches.
Mustafiz conceded just 15 runs in four overs in the last match and took two important wickets in the same overs to maintain pressure on Zimbabwe while defending 150.
Bangladesh have four points from three games and to qualify for the semifinal they have to win their remaining two matches against Asian powerhouses India and Pakistan.
To achieve that feat, Tigers will have to play their best possible cricket and there will be no margin of error against these Asian cricketing giants in the forthcoming two high-voltage games.
