Mahmudullah back to batting

After more than five weeks of high-octane cricketing action, the 2019 World Cup has boiled down to three matches and four teams. Two of those -- India and New Zealand -- will face off in the first semifinal at Old Trafford today with each side knowing that they need just two good performances to take home cricket’s most coveted trophy.

There is a chance of light rain in Manchester today, but a complete washout is a slim possibility as unlike the group stage, there are reserve days for the semifinals and finals. If rain does stop play today, the teams will continue the match tomorrow from the score they end on today.

While New Zealand have struggled into the knockouts, India have cantered into the last four as the top-placed side. However, while India are ahead, they are not clear favourites as there is precious little to separate the four semifinalists after a group stage that none have escaped unscathed. Neither side are strangers to the pressure cooker atmosphere of World Cup knockouts, although India have had a better experience in semifinals overall, winning three out of six. New Zealand, on the other hand, lost seven semifinals before winning their first one in 2015 against South Africa and then finishing runners-up to Australia.

India skipper Virat Kohli was well aware of the pressure of World Cup knockout games being different from the league matches, likening it to the ‘toughest situations’ in Test cricket.

“League stages, when you know that you need a victory to qualify, the team is a bit more relaxed and you know you can go out and try a few things,” said Kohli in the pre-match press conference yesterday. “But I think in knockout games you need to be very precise, at the same time being intense. This is more similar to the toughest situations you get in Test cricket where you have to be absolutely precise but your intent cannot go down, so decision-making will be crucial.”

While India are known for their batting prowess, the match well may become a fight between two of the best bowling lineups in the World Cup. India’s seamers -- Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Hardik Pandya -- have been the most successful fast men in the World Cup, scalping 51 wickets. India will also feel that they have the edge on non-subcontinental teams with two leg-spinners in the right-handed Yuzvendra Chahal and the left-handed Kuldeep Yadav. With off-spin-bowling all-rounder Kedhar Jadhav also in the mix, they will certainly have a lot of options when forming the ideal bowling combination to run through the Kiwis.

New Zealand, meanwhile, have been the only team among the top four to have conceded runs at less than five an over. Their seam attack is a varied one, with Trent Boult and Matt Henry providing movement up front, Lockie Ferguson providing high pace and Colin de Grandhomme’s cutters and change-ups keeping batsmen guessing in the middle overs. Completing the picture is left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, who has kept a tight lid on scoring in the middle overs.

While their bowling is in rude health, New Zealand should be worried about their top order. Opener Martin Guptill has just scored 166 runs in eight matches, and New Zealand have lost 13 wickets in the batting Powerplay in the group stage. They have been overly reliant on skipper Kane Williamson, whose 481 runs have constituted an astonishing 28.73 per cent of New Zealand’s runs. The partnerships between Williamson and Ross Taylor -- who is the team’s second-highest scorer with 261 -- have proven integral in New Zealand’s wins.

“No, I don’t really look at it like that. I look at my role as a role and that’s one of 11 guys that do try and play their role to the best of their ability,” Williamson said when asked if his and Taylor’s were the key wickets for opposition. “And there’s so many guys that have had significant contributions over the last few years that have gone a long way for us to win cricket matches and we all have that same opportunity going into tomorrow.”

With a maximum of two games left to play, it will all come down to which side holds their nerves better on the day. If New Zealand’s top order can come to the party, it may well be a great contest to kick off the knockouts.

Martin Guptill played a full ball on leg stump from Jofra Archer to deep midwicket. Two runs were needed off the last ball of the Super Over and he put in a desperate dive -- the second fateful one in less than half an hour -- to complete the second, but there was too much ground between his bat and the World Cup trophy calling to him from just beyond the crease. Jos Buttler gathered the throw, which was well wide of the stumps, but there was enough time to whip the bails off, which he did and started running towards the gallery in ecstasy, followed by his teammates and fuelled by possibly the loudest roar ever heard at Lord’s.

England had won their first ever World Cup, had won it at home -- the third successive home victory in World Cups after India’s in 2011 and Australia’s in 2015.

But runs could not separate New Zealand and England in the greatest World Cup final yesterday, even though the teams had two chances to get ahead. The match saw two ties -- one in normal play and one in the Super Over. Buttler celebrated immediately because he knew that England, having hit more boundaries -- 22 fours and two sixes to New Zealand’s 14 fours and two sixes -- in the 50-over portion, had edged the tie-breaker to a tie-breaker.

England had sent Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes -- the man who made the Super Over possible with his last-over heroics -- and the duo hit two boundaries while scoring 15 runs off Trent Boult, who nearly defended 14 runs in the last over of normal time.

The pacey Jofra Archer came in to bowl for England and New Zealand had nominated Jimmy Neesham and Guptill to score the 16 runs that would give them their first World Cup. Archer started with a wide, conceded two the next ball and Neesham hammered a six off the third ball. With seven required off four balls Neesham scampered a pair of doubles before getting just a single off the penultimate ball. That set the stage for the last ball, after which there was heartbreak for New Zealand and elation for most of the 30,000 gathered at Lord’s.

Before the high-octane two-over finish, there was a pulsating 100-over contest that led up to that point. New Zealand bowled brilliantly to defend 241 for eight, and England’s Ben Stokes hit a nearly perfectly-paced 98-ball 84 to take England level after they were at one stage 86 for four.

It was nearly perfectly paced because he needed fortune to end up as the player-of-the-match. There was another despairing dive before Guptill’s, this one during the last over of normal play when England needed nine runs from three balls. Stokes, having just hit a six after playing two dot balls from Trent Boult, whipped a ball away to deep midwicket and dove to beat the throw -- from none other than Guptill -- and the ball deflected off the bat and ran away for four. That effectively brought six runs from the fourth ball. With three more required from the last two balls, Adil Rashid was run out at the non-striker’s end after Stokes had hit to long off. With two more needed off the last ball, last man Mark Wood was run out trying to take the match-winning second, bringing on the Super Over in a World Cup final that will go down in folklore as one of the greatest matches -- let alone World Cup finals -- ever played.

Before that, Buttler and Stokes had put on 110 runs for the fifth wicket to fish England out of trouble. Buttler was the dominant partner, scoring 59 off 60 balls. When the last 10 overs started England needed 72 runs with Buttler and Stokes at the crease. But that is when the Kiwis started turning it around as Jimmy Neesham and Lockie Ferguson bowled to their fields and dried up the boundaries. Buttler departed in the 45th over with 45 still left to win, caught in the deep off Ferguson trying to re-lease the pressure. Chris Woakes departed for 10 in the 47th over, caught behind off a fiery Ferguson. England needed 24 off the last two overs. Liam Plunkett holed out off Jimmy Neesham, caught at long off by Boult. In another stroke of luck for Stokes, Boult nearly pulled off a stunner off the fourth ball of the over when he caught the ball at the boundary, but his feet had touched the ropes before he could throw it back for a combination catch. Neesham then accounted for Jofra Archer, bowling him for a first-ball duck with a slower ball. With two wickets left and 15 runs to get, it seemed New Zealand’s match, but that is when the match turned from a classic to a thriller of epic proportions.

Earlier, the crunch battle was England’s belligerent opening pair of Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow taking on New Zealand’s incisive new-ball duo of Trent Boult and Matt Henry.

The left-handed Boult almost accounted for Roy in the very first ball of the innings, rapping the right-hander with a sharp inswinger that seemed headed for the stumps. New Zealand reviewed the not-out decision, but the decision stayed with the umpire as just a part of the ball was hitting leg stump.

While New Zealand brought Test-match ethos by trying for wickets with early movement, Roy repre-sented England’s limited-overs motto by going hard at anything that was slightly off line or length. He hit three boundaries in that process, but Henry also had him playing and missing on numerous occasions with perfectly pitched outswingers. Eventually, Roy got close enough to one of those and edged through to the keeper in the sixth over with the score on 28.

If New Zealand’s bowling was in Test-match mode, their fielding was very much of the cutting-edge limited-overs variety, scampering after every ball and throwing themselves at every ball to support Boult, Henry, the pacey Lockie Ferguson and the variety-laden Colin de Grandhomme. Roy’s dismissal saw just 31 runs in the next 65 balls and it was the pressure built up through that concerted effort that induced Joe Root to go for an airy drive and edge behind to the keeper in the 17th over off de Grandhomme.

Bairstow departed next when he played on to a fast Ferguson lifter in the 20th over with the score reading 71 for three and the required run rate nudging six an over. That set the stage for New Zealand’s comparative weak link of Jimmy Neesham to come on and England skipper Eoin Morgan, perhaps trying to release the pressure, went early at a long hop off the first delivery and Ferguson took a superb catch running in from deep point and diving forward to send Morgan on his way.

Earlier still, ages ago it seemed by the end of the match, New Zealand were restricted to 241 for eight by a strong bowling performance from England. Liam Plunkett took three for 42 and Chris Woakes three for 37 as England successfully managed to deny New Zealand’s danger men Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor meaningful contributions, which they had done throughout the World Cup. Opener Henry Nicholls top-scored with 55. Even after Taylor and Williamson’s departures, New Zealand played within their means and concentrated on getting just enough runs on the board to put pressure on England in the biggest match of their lives in front of a partisan crowd. They put faith in their bowling lineup to dial up that pressure, and that is exactly what they did.

At the end, however, England proved equal to the task and their boundary count, and a stray deflection, saw them crowned champions at home.

Such has been Shakib Al Hasan's brilliance in this World Cup that after a whimpering end to their campaign, Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza kept naming the all-rounder when speaking of the positives. Shakib's performance -- 606 runs and 11 wickets -- actually transcended the results of the team he played for, and Mashrafe said the only regret was that Bangladesh could not take Shakib further.

"I should talk about Shakib; he has been absolutely beautiful. Batted at three, did what he could do. I feel very bad for Shakib," Mashrafe said after the match. "The tournament he had, he deserved to be in the semifinal. Really feel sorry for him. I think it was one of the best performances not just in this World Cup, but in all editions. It is disappointing that a player who played like that is not in the semifinals.

"Mushfiqur [Rahim] batted so well," Mashrafe continued about the positives. "We could not do the right things at the right times. We could not take catches when we needed to, and when we needed to bowl well, the bowlers could not step up."

With this being Mashrafe's last World Cup, there was little to do than look forward to Bangladesh's next World Cup in India in 2023, even though he would not be there. He wished that the core of the team would survive and there would be new players who could step up in favourable conditions.

"When we play in the next World Cup, I am sure if there are new players who come in, the team will go forward even more," Mashrafe said. "I wish and pray that Shakib, Tamim [Iqbal], Mushfiqur and [Mahmudullah] Riyad will be alive and well for the next World Cup so that they can guide the newer players. Since it is in India, I of course cannot say that we will win, but Bangladesh will have a chance.

He was more positive about the next tournament because it would be played in Asia and he believed that a bowling attack that was exposed in England would be more impressive in Asia.

"If you ask me after this tournament, when we play in this part of the world, bowling is a big issue. But if we play in Asia we are a far better bowling side."

A magnificent rearguard effort from India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja could not offset the early damage done by seamers Trent Boult and Matt Henry as New Zealand secured a second successive World Cup final berth with an 18-run win in a pulsating semifinal at Old Trafford yesterday. New Zealand completed the win on the reserve day set aside for the semifinals and finals after rain had forced a suspension on Tuesday, which ended with the Kiwis on 211 for five in 46.1 overs.

The Black Caps will meet the winner of today’s second semifinal between Australia and England in the final at Lord’s on July 14. If Australia win, it will be a replay of the 2015 World Cup final and if England win, there will be a new world champion come Sunday night.

Chasing 240 to win, India had brought the chase down to 37 from the last three overs with Jadeja and Mahendra Singh Dhoni at the crease. Having hit four sixes while dragging India back into contention, Jadeja perished trying for a necessary fifth to be caught in the ring off a Boult slower ball. Dhoni started the next over from Lockie Ferguson, which began with India needing 31, with a six over point but off the third ball a precision throw from deep square leg from Martin Guptill found Dhoni just short of his crease in his attempt to complete his 51st run. Guptill’s pinpoint accuracy was one of the examples of fortune favouring the brave after skipper Kane Williamson had gone for wickets early on and gambled by bowling his best bowlers out before the last two overs.

Ferguson bowled Bhuvneshwar Kumar with a slower ball and then Jimmy Neesham had Yuzvendra Chahal caught behind as India were all out for 221 with three balls to spare.

New Zealand’s win over the more fancied India was based on doing what no other team had managed against the 2011 World Cup champions in this edition so far -- dismissing Rohit Sharma and skipper Virat Kohli within the first 10 overs. After New Zealand had added 28 runs for the loss of three wickets in the morning yesterday, three wickets from Henry and one -- that of Kohli -- from Boult cut the Indians down to 24 for four after the first 10 overs. The significance of those early blows can best be illustrated by the fact that in their eight league games, India had lost just four wickets in the first 10 overs.

But the two-time champions’ chasing pedigree came through later on, when Jadeja dominated a 116-run seventh-wicket stand with MS Dhoni, who was handing the strike over to the left-hander in red-hot form. Jadeja came to

the crease with India reeling on 92 for six in the 31st over with Dhoni playing slowly and the match all but lost. He hit a 59-ball 77 in the partnership that lasted 17.2 overs and nearly pulled off a miracle.

Earlier, in ideal swing-bowling conditions, captain Williamson’s gamble to go all out for wickets was rewarded by two bowlers who executed that plan to the letter with highly accurate and incisive spells. Henry drew first blood in the second over by having Sharma -- who scored five centuries in eight league games -- caught by the keeper with an edged away-swinger. Boult worked Kohli over with a sequence of two outswingers and two inswingers, with the right-hander playing across the line and being trapped in front by the second inswinger. Lokesh Rahul repeated Sharma’s error -- poking without conviction at an away-swinger -- to leave India on a woeful five for three in the fourth over. Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant fought hard to survive with Boult constantly keeping the batsmen guessing and playing late. Neesham then completed the Powerplay dominance by snaffling a superb catch at point millimetres off the ground diving to his left when Karthik checked a drive to another outswinger from Henry and got a thick outside edge in the 10th    over.

Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner did his part by bowling a tight line and Pant, realising the need for some quick runs, attempted a maximum but was instead caught off a slog sweep at deep midwicket in the 23rd over. The pressure also told on Hardik Pandya, whose wild slog in the 31st over off the same bowler was caught by Williamson in the ring, leaving India in a seemingly hopeless position. Jadeja’s innings followed, as did a late Dhoni fightback in what could be the legendary wicketkeeper-batsman’s last ODI, but the early ground ceded to the brave Kiwis proved too much to recover.

One of the recurring themes of Bangladesh's World Cup campaign has been the disappointing performance of the one batsman most fans would have been looking at to set the biggest stage alight for the Tigers. Tamim Iqbal averaged 57.06 between the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, but on the biggest stage, he managed 235 runs at an average of 29.37 from eight games. A player who takes great pride in performance and the legacy he will leave behind in Bangladesh cricket, the meagre returns frustrated Tamim throughout the event, even though it was his most successful World Cup in terms of runs scored. Yesterday, as the Tigers prepared to make their way back from the UK, Tamim spoke to The Daily Star's Sakeb Subhan about his disappointment and the need to move past it. The following are excerpts of the interview:

The Daily Star (TDS): Are you disappointed with your performance in the World Cup?

Tamim Iqbal (TI): Yes, very disappointed. In the sense that, after what happened in 2015, I have been preparing myself for 2019. In these four years I've had a lot of success. And then, even in Ireland I did really well. But I think that as soon as the World Cup started, I took a lot of pressure on myself. Just thinking that I don't go back to 2015 again. It is very easy for anyone who reads this to come and ask me why are you thinking like this, you have scored so many runs. But only I know what is going on inside. My nightmare was going back to 2015, what happened in 2015, how I suffered and my family suffered.

TDS: By that you mean the outside pressure after you dropped a catch against England and also some inconsistency with the bat?

TI: The outburst that happened was very new for me then. I couldn't handle it at that time. And then how the family suffered, and all of that. I knew very well that the World Cup is a tournament that makes even those who do not follow cricket start following; that's how big the event is. I think that is what killed me at the beginning. I took a lot of pressure on myself; I wanted to prove a point… not prove a point, I wanted to do really well.

And in these four years, the success I got, I never tried to prove to anyone. I just went there, batted and things happened. But here, I put so much pressure on myself to succeed that it hampered me. I was actually looking to get  a score in the first two games. That's very important for me. The 62 I scored [against Australia], if I could have scored that in the first two games, it could have been a different thing mentally. I think that is why I find it disappointing. The trolling, the criticism is part of my life. I need to accept it. I think that I have dealt with it much better than I did in 2015. What bothered me was myself. I lost to myself.

TDS: What bothered you more, that you couldn't score runs or the pressure you put on yourself?

TI: I took a lot of pressure to score runs. I had to score… I had to score. If you try too hard to do something, it doesn't happen. I really am not someone who has a bad tournament and will then come and give excuses, but actually I was very unlucky in this tournament. There were three to four dismissals where I couldn't do anything. The Cottrell runout, the three chop-ons. It had nothing to do with my technique. There were one or two dismissals which I regret… England and New Zealand. The first game [against South Africa] was a very good delivery, the last game [against Pakistan] was a good delivery. Surprisingly, though I didn't score runs, I actually batted really well. It wasn't as if I was being beaten or struggling. Whenever I batted, everybody thought – myself included – that this is the day probably. I went there and played a couple of nice shots and then it just happened. The good thing is I don't take the past innings with me when I am batting. I started panicking more because I was getting out after one mistake. I actually lost patience with myself. I wondered what the hell is happening. I talked to Neil and he said you cannot do anything. After the first two games I went to [batting coach] Neil [McKenzie] and said 'let's shoot my batting and see if there is anything technical'. Then he told me 'I wish I could tell you something', there was nothing. He said 'it's basically the same, you've done this'.

There are two positives from this. One was the processes that got me success, the way I batted and the processes I did before the game, I did exactly the same. In such situations, there will be people giving you all kind of advice: 'Go and attack', 'if this is not working you should bat like this or that'. That is the worst possible thing I could have done. Because after not scoring in two matches, if I went down the wicket to the first ball, or swung my bat around and then got out, then that would have the worst possible thing. The best thing I did was I never changed. I batted exactly the same way when I scored a lot runs and when I didn't score a lot runs – from game 1 to game 8 – I batted the same way.

TDS: When you say the same way, do you mean the changed Tamim who aims to bat till the 40th over?

TI: The aim is to bat deep. Sometimes, with the way I start… I will take time when I start the innings. When I am batting on 40 or 50, I make up the time I took. I have a lot of confidence in myself, the team, the coaching staff have a lot of confidence in me. It's not like I have done it for 10 games; I have done it for 50 games. Unfortunately I never got to that stage in this World Cup. People will say that there are a lot of ifs and buts, but it does not bother me because I know what I was trying to do. The other positive is that in my bad times, if I am averaging 30, I am pretty happy.

TDS: A lot of criticism has come because of your changed role, from swashbuckler to someone who bats all the way through.

TI: My role also has changed and, though it is a World Cup, I batted exactly the same way for the last five years. The way I batted actually helped the team to win. It doesn't bother me what people think. Changing myself because some people think a certain way is the worst possible thing I could do. What I do is not easy. My point is, if something has worked for me for a number of years, why should I change it? The people who understand cricket will understand what I went through and the people who don't understand cricket, will always criticise. And I am completely fine with it; I think I have come out of that space in 2015. There were high expectations, for me too, because I took myself to that level. It hurts a lot, but I need to come out of it.

TDS: You say that you have lost to yourself but also that the frustrations did not hamper you in the middle. Where did it affect you?

TI: It didn't affect me when I was batting. It affected me before the game – two days before the game. When playing a match, what you're doing in the middle is important but there are other important things. How mentally relaxed you are a day before, how positively you are thinking, all this adds to your batting. If you are not in a good mental space when you are going out to bat, it sometimes definitely hurts you and definitely affects your game. I took a lot of pressure to perform. It was not about social media or people writing about me, it was me who was the problem.

TDS: Did the dropped catch of Rohit Sharma add to the pressure?

TI: The catch drop didn't bother me either. I dropped the catch and felt bad for a couple of overs and I was up and running in two overs' time. I was going into the hot position to field. I was cheering when wickets were falling. I was probably the first one to go to Mustafizur when he took five wickets. Dropped catches are part of cricket. It was an important catch, I understand. A lot of criticism came after the dropped catch. Going forward, I will be taking a lot of good catches and I will also be dropping catches.

TDS: With three wins out of eight matches, how would you rate Bangladesh's performance?

TI: I thought it was a disappointing performance. We definitely had our moments and our chances. I could answer that question by saying that it was a very positive tournament, we pushed the best teams to the limit, but I think that we as a team have come out of that position. Just playing well is not our target. Playing well and winning games is our target. If you think in that way, we are number seven. If South Africa win we become number eight. So you cannot say it was a great campaign.