Tamim's Asia Cup uncertain

When Bangladesh take on India in the Asia Cup final in Dubai today, it will be a battle between two sides who have come to the title clash through highly contrasting routes and with widely divergent levels of confidence.

The match will start at 5:30pm (Bangladesh time) at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

India had confirmed their place in the final by beating Pakistan by nine wickets on Sunday, the same day that Bangladesh had just managed to stay in contention with a three-run win over Afghanistan. India then rested their best players -- including captain Rohit Sharma and vice-captain Shikhar Dhawan -- for their last Super Four match against Afghanistan, who were inspired by leg-spinner Rashid Khan into forcing a thrilling tie against the world's top-ranked ODI team on Tuesday.

The following day, Bangladesh woke to the news that ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan would follow opener and highest run-scorer Tamim Iqbal out of the tournament, but still rallied to beat two-time champions Pakistan by 37 runs in Abu Dhabi.

While that meant that Bangladesh made the final for the third time in the last four editions, it also meant that they would have one less day than the more-fancied India to recuperate after toiling in heat that they had never played in as a team.

There is also a contrast between the respective strengths of the sides. Bangladesh have routinely lost two wickets inside the first 10 overs and have played out the 50 overs only once in five matches. Meanwhile India have only lost more than three wickets on the two occasions when they played at less than full strength -- against Hong Kong in their first match when they lost seven wickets for 285 and against Afghanistan, when they were bowled out for 252.

"It was difficult [winning against Pakistan] with performers like Shakib and Tamim not playing," said Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza at the pre-final press conference yesterday. "The good thing that the boys have done is that they did not given up, although we lost to Afghanistan in the group stage and again against India [exactly a week before the final], but still they fought back.

"There are some concerns with our batting, but Mushfiqur [Rahim, the second-highest scorer in the tournament with 297 runs] is in great form. [Mohammad] Mithun is playing well, [Mahmudullah] Riyad also batted well. If our top order can click it will be fine. But again I think that India are a far better team -- number one in the world. They came here as favourites, but you never know, anything can happen on a good day. We have to be mentally strong and fight till the end."

While India will have a settled team, Bangladesh have not played the same team for two matches in succession throughout the tournament. The injuries have forced them to get creative, such as batting left-handed opener Imrul Kayes at six to combat Rashid's leg-spin on Sunday. There may be a change today, with left-arm spinner Nazmul Islam coming into replace batsman Mominul Haque to try and contain India's vaunted batting order.

Imrul could also slot back into the opening position, pulling Soumya down to the lower middle order. With the way things have gone, it is a fool's errand to guess their plans. Mashrafe also has an injury to his right little from when he spectacularly caught Pakistan's Shoaib Malik on Wednesday. However, there is no danger of the captain not playing in the title clash.

The crux of the battle may be in the top order because the two teams match up pretty evenly with the ball. Bangladesh have not conceded more than the 255 for seven Afghanistan scored against them last Thursday. As Mashrafe said, if it goes according to form, the top-ranked India should come out on top against the seventh-ranked Bangladesh. But if the Tigers can find the solution to the top order woes at the most opportune time, they will have performed above themselves and could conjure an unlikely result.

Bangladesh also have the invisible hand of momentum going in their favour, having won their last two matches with spirited performances.

However, it should also be remembered that they have never won a final, including a loss to India in the last Asia Cup final at home and in the Nidahas Trophy in March.

After Bangladesh lost the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle by a big margin in March 2017, they famously came back in the next Test to seal a rare away win in their 100th Test match. The players then revealed that they had instituted a policy of holding a players-only team meeting on the eve of each match so that they can talk through problems and find solutions on their own.

A year and a half later, that attitude surfaced again when Mashrafe Bin Mortaza took the decision to send Tamim Iqbal out to bat even though the batsman was sitting with his fractured left wrist in a sling in Saturday's Asia Cup opener against Sri Lanka. It changed the complexion of the match as it allowed Mushfiqur Rahim to add 32 priceless runs, and Bangladesh ended up winning by 137 runs.

That clarity of thought, lamentably, has not been found in the machinations of the team management. They needlessly dragged their feet about whether Tamim would remain a part of the Asia Cup when the whole world saw him sitting on the dressing room balcony with his left hand heavily bandaged. It was only yesterday that the team management announced, after Tamim had visited a German specialist, that Tamim would be out of the Asia Cup. Tamim will be flying home today and the reports from yesterday's scans will be sent to finger specialists in Australia.

"Tamim will be out for three-four weeks," team manager Khaled Mahmud told The Daily Star yesterday.  "He will not need an operation, but the specialist in Australia will recommend the next course of action."

News had done the rounds that the secrecy about Tamim's status was to keep Afghanistan, Bangladesh's opponents on September 20, on their toes about the status of the team's most important batsman.

"Not at all, it was only to keep Sri Lanka guessing about whether Tamim would go out to bat," said Mahmud. If that was the case, it was brilliant because it did severely wrong-foot the Sri Lankans. But talking to Tamim and other players, and Mahmud himself, a picture emerged that although the idea was mooted by Mashrafe with 20 overs to go -- around the same time that Mahmud had announced that Tamim would not bat again in the match -- the final decision was a last-second one that Tamim made on a whim.

Also, while the management were asked repeatedly why they were delaying the announcement of Tamim's exit on Sunday, they could not come up with the reason Mahmud gave yesterday. If it was indeed to wrong-foot Afghanistan, then Tamim walking around with a sling in the same hotel certainly put paid to that. Whatever was the reason, there seems to be a lack of coordination in the management setup, and in that they can learn from the team.

With arguably the two most important cricketers in Bangladesh – Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal – ruled out by the time they faced Pakistan in a do-or-die Asia Cup game on Wednesday, Bangladesh drew on wartime philosophy to emerge victorious against the odds.

"[Skipper] Mashrafe [Bin Mortaza] bhai told us one thing and we talked about one thing: when at war, you don't look back," said player-of-the-match Mushfiqur Rahim after the 37-run win over the two-time champions at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. "So if you think 'I am going to war and I will try to play it safe', that won't work. 

"Either kill or be killed -- one or the other. So that was a huge inspiration, because when you are at war you don't look at who your captain is, who's there or not there."

Mushfiqur was at the centre of the conflict, rescuing the side from the precarious position of 12 for three after Bangladesh won the toss and lifting them to 239 all out with a magnificent 99, becoming the first Bangladesh batsman to be out one short of a century in international cricket.

Bangladesh's highest run-scorer Tamim had already gone back to Dhaka on September 18 with a left-hand fracture sustained in the tournament's opening game against Sri Lanka. Shakib, meanwhile, was ruled out of the match because of a flare-up of a lingering finger injury picked up in January this year. He was subsequently sent home and will undergo surgery in either Melbourne or New York in the near future. 

But the calamitous setbacks only brought out the warriors in the Tigers.  

"You have to fight 100 per cent with what you have. So we thought that if we give our 100 per cent without thinking about the result, then, God willing, we will win as the best team. There will come a time when I won't be there -- no one is there forever. The five of us [seniors Mashrafe, Shakib, Tamim, Mushfiqur and Mahmudullah Riyad] will not be there at one point but even then you have to go on. So this was the talk and everyone was pumped up from there."