After Bangladesh defeated Oman last night by a big margin of 26 runs, star player and man of the match, Shakib Al Hasan commented on the team’s morale and plans ahead of their last group stage clash against Papua New Guinea on Thursday. That match will be a ‘do or die’ as Bangladesh sit in 3rd tied with Oman.
“The win is a relief for the team,” Shakib said. “I believe the dressing room will feel a lot better. The defeat to Scotland was definitely disappointing, but they played well. Like Oman did today. We had to work hard to come back into the game. I think Saifuddin and Mahedi bowled really well. Their spells were the turning point of this win. I think they didn’t even concede 30 runs in their eight overs, which really helped us. Credit to both for their bowling.”
Shakib said that Bangladesh is a good side currently and only need to make a few tweaks to strengthen their power play batting line up to score more runs.
“I think we have room for improvement by 20 to 25 runs. We can score 15 runs more in the powerplay, and an additional 10 runs in the last five overs, we can get this done. I think we are capable of improving on this, but we shouldn’t be too worried by it. If we get these extra runs, we can defend a 170-plus score,” he said.