Mustafizur was incredible, Rishad turned the tide: Tamim

Bangladesh pace man Mustafizur Rahman got four wickets so far in the T20 World Cup at an expense of only 47 runs bowling 12 overs in total. He didn’t give more than 20 runs in any of these matches. He gave 18 runs against South Africa, the highest in the tournament so far for him.

The Netherlands batters only could score only 12 runs against the cutter master yesterday, Thursday.  Former Bangladesh skipper was in all praise to Mustafizur.

Speaking to ESPN Cricinfo following the Bangladesh-Netherlands match, “I think the way Mustafiz is bowling at the moment is unbelievable. He has always been the bowler who has done the hard overs. He has been given the hard overs and he has been doing very well. This wicket suits Bangladesh quite well. It’s almost like playing at home.”

Bangladesh leggy Rishad Hossain picked up two wickets in the 15th over to turn the tides in favour of Bangladesh. Tamim feels that was the turning point of the match.

“Rishad’s third over changed the course of the match entirely. At that point of the match, Bangladesh and Netherlands were fighting neck to neck. Netherlands were 111 for three at the time. No one knew where the match was going. But that particular over was unbelievable.”

Shakib got a half century after 20 innings in the shortest format cricket. He received the player of the match award for the first time since 2021. The ace all-rounder, who saw him dropped to the fifth place in T20I all-rounders’ ranking, was highly criticised over his bad patch of form. However, Tamim stood for him in the bad times.

He praised the former No. 1 all-rounder after his timely innings of 64* against the Netherlands.

“He never had to show his value. We all know his value. He has been doing this for 16-17 years for Bangladesh. He went through a lean patch. There were a lot of criticisms, a lot of talks (surrounding him). Overall, it was a very well-played innings and he batted till the end. That was the most important part on such a wicket.”

Tamim Iqbal further said, “I think they were going quite well. They had to take (a) chance on Rishad’s over, which they tried but failed. If they could have got 12-13 runs in that over and 7-8 runs in the next, then they would be on course to chasing that total.”