Bangladesh U-19 cricket captain Mehedi Hasan Miraz has regretted not being able to carry the bat through as his team collapsed in a heap in their World Cup semi-final clash against the West Indies here.
Miraz believes Bangladesh would have made 250 if he had stayed in the middle. The hosts were bowled out for 226 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium here on Thursday. The Caribbean team reached the target with three wickets and eight balls to spare, reports bdnews24.com.
Miraz scored 60 to help Bangladesh recover from some early setbacks, pairing in an 85-run stand with Mohammad Shaifuddin, who made 36. The colts were set to launch a late onslaught at 196/5 in 45 overs when Miraz and Shaifuddin went back in successive balls.
Miraz tried to slog a short ball but ended up slicing it to mid-off. Shaifuddin lost his off-stump in the next delivery.
"If I could finish the innings, we would have made 250. Shaifuddin got out in the next ball after my dismissal. That pegged us back. We had five overs left with five wickets in hand. We had to take risks. A couple of fours and sixes would have helped us play our natural game,"Miraz said.
Bangladesh lost five wickets for 30 runs in the last five overs.
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In the quarter-final against Nepal, Bangladesh were in a tight spot chasing a modest 212. Miraz insisted the decision to bat first was to avoid the pressure of a run chase. He said scoring 20 more runs might have changed the outcome of the game.
"The wicket was a bit slow. It's better to bat first here, you can't always play well under pressure. We did not do well under pressure either. We thought it would be difficult for any team to beat us if we score 240-250 batting first. But we were 20 runs short," said Miraz.