CityCell Zimbabwe Tour of Bangladesh 2005
Bashar vows to fight on
Staff Correspondent, Ctg
His team is one loss away from conceding the series but Bang-ladesh captain Habibul Bashar said there was still everything to play for in the three remaining matches against Zimbabwe."It is a very difficult situation for us but I'm not ready to throw in the towel. I think the series is still wide open. Yes, we have to do something special to win it from here on but I believe we have the ability to do that. I am hopeful because in the last two games we could not play our real game," said Bashar after the 31-run defeat against the tourists here yesterday. "Maybe we were a bit edgy after the loss in Dhaka and I think the boys took unnecessary pressure on themselves. We were very much in the match today while chasing but then came the dramatic collapse. I believe the turning point of the game was my dismissal but the other batsmen should not have panicked," added Bashar. Bashar said that conceding too many runs in the latter part of the innings had become a worrying sign recently and is hurting them. "We could have restricted them below 200 but in the last ten overs we gave away 93 runs including 70 in the last six overs. We had a long discussion about the problem but unfortunately we could not manage to address it in the middle," said Bashar. The country's premier batsman emphasised on building partnerships in order to bounce back in the series. "Only one or two good scores are not good enough to win a match. We have to have some good partnerships in the middle order." Zimbabwean skipper Taibu thought his team handled pressure better than Bangladesh which made the difference in the end. "We enjoy batting under pressure. The Bangladesh bowlers were not consistent in the slog overs and that's why we got all those runs," said Taibu adding that they also bowled to the weaknesses of the opposition and were not troubled by the absence of paceman Elton Chigumbura who could not field after getting injured while batting. "We had a bowling plan for their batsmen and our bowlers executed that plan very well by taking wickets at regular intervals. "I thought the wicket would suit spin and towards the end it did take some turn. I did not worry much for Chigumbura as there was Rogers, Matsikenyeri and Taylor."
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