Asia Cup 2018: Mashrafe Mortaza praises team's fielding after win over Pakistan

Denzil Pinto 01:03 27/09/2018
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  • Mortaza was thrilled with team's fielding

    Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza lauded his team’s fielding after they beat Pakistan by 37 runs to set up a Asia Cup final clash with India.

    The Tigers defended 238, restricting Pakistan to 202-9 in their 50 overs in the crucial Super Four clash at Sheikh Zayed Stadium on Wednesday.

    The fact they reached that total was largely down to the 144-run fourth-wicket stand between Mushfiqur Rahim (99) and Mohammad Mithun (60) after they were 12-3 in the first four overs.

    Pakistan suffered the same fate when Mustafizur Rahman took two quick wickets to dismiss Sarfraz Ahmed (10) and Babar Azam (1) to leave Pakistan reeling at 18-3.

    Mortaza and the rest of his team-mates were clinical on the field with the captain himself producing a superb catch to remove in-form all-rounder Shoaib Malik (30).

    Mortaza hopes to carry the momentum into the final against India, their third in four years.

    “We can be proud of our fielding today. We haven’t seen this quality of fielding for a long time, so hopefully the boys can understand the value of good fielding. We still need to improve a bit of our batting and bowling,”  he said.

    “We changed our combination a bit. Usually I open the bowling, but today we started with Miraz. The bowlers did a good job, especially when we didn’t get the runs. But Rahim and Mithun batted really well,” he added.

    Shaheen Afridi got praise from Sarfraz Ahmed

    Shaheen Afridi got praise from Sarfraz Ahmed

    “I was lucky that I didn’t drop my catch, because Shoaib Malik was in such good form, but overall the fielding was really good.

    Rahim was named man of the match following his outstanding efforts with the bat and the 31-year-old admitted it was crucial that he survived his first 10 overs.

    “With the new ball and with the quality Pakistan bowling had, we knew we might lose early wickets. It’s very important that I believed in myself and I spoke to Mithun that we need to build a partnership which was very crucial at that stage,” he said.

    “The wicket was pretty good and we wanted to make sure we dig in through the first 10 overs. The credit goes to the way I practice and the preparation I do gives me a lot of self belief. Whenever you are positive you take the right decisions more often and it helps a lot in my batting. Making the right decisions help me stay calm and my posture at the crease.”

    Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed counted himself as one of the players who failed to step up.

    “We are obviously not feeling good. As a team we have not done well. Our performance has been very poor,” he said. “As a player, I have done really badly too. I should have done better. We were poor in every facet of the game.

    “There were lot of batting collapses for us in the tournament. Fakhar is our main batsman, he failed to perform in this tournament and Shadab was hit by injury too. We have to play well to beat good teams. Our batting was the main reason for our defeat in this tournament.”

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