Simmons defends Litton, Hridoy while ‘looking to build something’

Veterans such as Mahmudullah Riyad has stepped away from international cricket recently while Shakib Al Hasan remains unpicked across formats at the moment while he himself said that he already considers himself retired from T20Is. It meant a slightly new-look team went to the recent T20I series against UAE and Pakistan. After Bangladesh's 3-0 thrashing at the hands of Pakistan yesterday, head coach Phil Simmons said there was disappointment but not to the extent there would have been with a settled team but also ended up having to defend knocks from somewhat settled stars such as skipper Litton Das and Tawhid Hridoy. 

"Our back-to- back series loss… it's disappointing to lose any series. I think where we at, we are trying to build something. We're trying to change up a few things. There's a lot of young players in the team. So the disappointment is there but not as much as if we had settled on a team. So it's disappointing but not as bad as it maybe would be when we settle properly.

A similar looking team had recently clinched the T20I series in West Indies 3-0 under Litton Das. What changed? One idea is that Pakistan served much more batting-friendly and flat wickets, something many of the Bangladesh bowlers seem to struggle with. Without Taskin Ahmed or Mustafizur Rahman, the bowling unit suffered. Nahid Rana too had opted out of the Paksitan series but remained expensive in UAE.

The only bright points in the series was the openers coming into runs. Parvez Hossain Emon and Tanzid Tamim found starts, even if sporadically, across two T20I series and in the third T20I yesterday, the duo contributed with a 110-run opening stand.

"I think the biggest positive we're trying to get that opening pair working together and today we saw how destructive they can be when they work together. I think we are trying to make sure that our seamers are doing what they need to do on wickets like this because we don't really get wickets like these in Bangladesh. So when we come out and we play on wickets like this things have to be different. So that's what that's the main things we're trying to make sure happens throughout the series," Simmons said.

The middle-order however has cause for concern. Runs have not come fast during the middle overs and wickets have often fallen in quick succession. Yesterday, Litton and Tawhid Hridoy Hridoy failed to carry on after starts. By the time the duo left, not many overs were left either.

Asked if Jaker Ali Anik, who had played some effective cameo knocks in T20Is, should have come in after a big opening stand, Simmons defended Litton and Hridoy stand that produced a 49-run stand but took 32 deliveries to score those runs.

"Yeah, well I don't think the momentum dropped with the skipper and I think later on after the skipper got out we dropped a little bit. We could have gotten another 20 runs at least, but I don't think it dropped immediately after. So I think the the captain and Hridoy did their job," the Bangladesh head coach said.