Batting remains a big worry for Bangladesh team as the side reached New York Sunday [BST] for their second game of the Twenty20 World Cup.
Bangladesh will take on South Africa in Group D fixture at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium Monday.
The Proteas with two wins in as many games are leading the group.
The Tigers also got off to a winning start defeating former champions Sri Lanka by two wickets in Dallas Saturday.
The win however, was never a comfortable one as Bangladesh’s batting struggles continued.
Following a brilliant effort, the men in red and green had restricted the Lankans to 124.
Chasing the low total, Bangladesh once again missed contributions from the top-order and faced another debacle later when they needed just 25 runs from the last five overs.
Mahmudullah with young Tanzim Sakib held their nerve in a nail-biting situation to get Bangladesh to the shore with an over to spare.
Bangladesh captain Nazmul Hossain Shanto’s belief, expressed ahead of the Sri Lanka game, that the batters would start fresh on a new day and get result of the hard work in training sessions, did not materialize.
The only positive in the game was top-order batter Liton Das getting runs after openers Soumya Sarkar and Tanzid Tamim’s cheap departure.
Liton played the role of an anchor on a surface that aided the bowlers a bit and posted 36 off 38 involving two boundaries and one over boundary – his first 30-plus innings in seven games.
Tanzid did not face much criticism but for left-handed batter Soumya, all hell broke loose following his soft dismissal for a duck in the first over of the innings.
Soumya registered an unwanted record as he emerged as the batter to record most ducks in the format – 13 – alongside Ireland's Paul Stirling.
The 31-year old Bangladesh batter has played 84 T20 Internationals till date.
Behind Soumya and Stirling are – with 12 ducks each – India's Rohit Sharma, Ireland's Kevin O'Brien and Rwanda's Kevin Irakoze.
Soumya’s previous no-score had come two matches ago – against hosts USA in the second game of the three-match series.
The southpaw then played a match-winning unbeaten 43 to help Bangladesh skip a possible whitewash against lower-ranked USA.
Discussions are abound as to why Soumya is not being benched but then there is also the dilemma of not having another specialist opener in the squad.
The only option is to bring in wicketkeeper-batter Jaker Ali Anik in the middle and push Shanto to the top.
Before facing South Africa, Bangladesh will have their only practice session in New York’s Long Island following which the think tank will have a lot to discuss and decide.
