Anamul Haque Bijoy scooped his career’s second man-of-the-match as Bangladesh continued to dominate the visitors who are yet to see the face of a win in this tour. There were disappointment from both members of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe present at the post-match conference yesterday – 21-year-old Anamul expressed sadness for not being able to register a hundred while Zimbabwe skipper Elton Chigumbura was fed-up with his charges committing the same mistakes in every game.
Anamul, who has three centuries in his 25-match one-day career, made 80 in the previous match while he was just five shy of a 100 yesterday. The youngster was rued the opportunities and said, “I am disappointed with myself, missed the century two matches in a row.”
“A batsman is always disappointed when he gets out in the 90s and for me the pain is double because this is the first time I got out in the 90s,” said a dejected Anamul.
Alongside Anamul, Bangladesh’s experienced opening batsman Tamim Iqbal also seem to be in song as the two are providing effective partnership at the top. After their record 158-run stand in the second ODI in Chittagong, the duo added 121 yesterday to set another solid platform of a big score. Along the way it was also the only time an opening pair registered two hundred-plus partnerships for Bangladesh.
“Tamim Iqbal is one of the best openers in the world, and he helps me all the time. He is a great partner, doesn’t matter if he is batting with me or with someone else. Today (yesterday) he played the anchoring role while I went for the shots,” said Anamul.
Anamul, who will turn 22 next month, feels a “Banglawash” is well on cards given they maintain their present standard. “The batsmen are getting runs and with the ball Mashrafe (Bin Mortaza) bhai is getting the early breakthroughs and later being complimented by other bowlers, the fielding is sharp so I think we are in a good shape now and with this whitewash should not be an impossible task.”
On the other hand, the visiting skipper had nothing much to say but repeat what he has been saying after their latest defeats. The 124-run defeat ended their hope of saving the ODI series and Chigumbura just hopes they can take some positives back home from the remaining two matches.
The all-rounder was especially disappointed from the efforts of his bowlers while he also reasoned the regular fall of wicket during their run-chase behind the humiliating defeat.
“Same old stuff, same old mistakes. I guess if we keep repeating the same thing we keep getting the same result. It didn’t work like I said the same mistakes, we changed the team but we repeated the same mistakes,” said Chigumbura.
“And we didn’t bowl well as we wanted too. Any team chasing 290 is always a tough thing and we didn’t help ourselves by losing early wickets again. Could have been better if we had wickets in hand,” he added.
However the 28-year-old believes these demoralising tour and the results in Bangladesh will not put any negative impact or extra pressure on his team ahead of the ICC World Cup in February. Chigumbura said the conditions in Australia and New Zealand are totally different and more suitable for them and hence they are not worried about the results here.
