Domingo puzzled by batting collapses, says changes will be made
Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo is puzzled by his team’s constant batting collapses in Tests and said that he will be making some changes to fix this problem.
Bangladesh lost the second Test of the two-match series by 10 wickets to Sri Lanka on Friday, which meant they also lost the series 0-1.
In the first innings of the match in Dhaka, the hosts were reduced to 24-5 before Liton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim’s heroics got them to a more than competitive first innings score.
But in the second innings another collapse took place as this time they were reduced to 23-4. Liton and Shakib Al Hasan scored half centuries but it wasn’t enough to save the team from defeat.
In the post-match press conference, Domingo accepted that he himself is searching for the reason behind such batting collapses.
“If we knew the answer, it probably wouldn’t have happened. But we’ve got to do something different. Whether that means to change the order around, look at one or two things. In both innings, we were 24-4, 23-4 in the first innings. You are not going to win Test matches from those positions. That’s definitely something we need to look at and we’ve got to change something.”
Domingo expressed his frustration about his team not failing to capitalise when they are in a good position and letting the match slip away.
“In the first Test against Sri Lanka, they are six down for 161, they end up drawing, West Indies chase down 400… against South Africa, we are getting into a good position, Rabbi (Yasir Ali) gets run out. So many small mistakes that get made at crucial stages. Hopefully with more experience, more confidence that belief will come. But to get that confidence, you need to win some games.”
“There are so many positives to take out of it. We seem to getting so close, we are getting into good positions and then we have a bad session. For the players, I am sure it is equally frustrating for them. Because they are doing a lot of good things, fighting back. But they are getting behind the game at certain stages. Like I said, there are a lot of positives, we are competing, we are in the game for four days and then we have such a bad session that there is no way back.”
The South African is desperate to break this cycle of disappointment and to do that he will be making some changes to the Test team.
“It’s happened to us too many times over the last six-eight months. If that means you’ve to change the order, look at one-two options, we will possible have to do that going forward.”
Bangladesh was missing the likes of Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Mehidy Hasan Miraz in the Dhaka Test due to injuries. Domingo feels that the team suffered because of their absence as the new look attack proved to be erratic.
“We won a Test match in New Zealand. We had Shoriful, Taskin, Ebadot and Miraz. And in this Test we only had Ebadot. So, it’s a totally new bowling attack in terms of what we had in the previous Test match that we won. And we probably didn’t bowl as well we should’ve. There is no doubt.”
“If you look at the stats, the number of balls that got scored between square leg, mid-wicket, fine-leg, I’ve never seen that many runs being scored there in my career as a coach. So, we bowled far too straight, bowled far too many easy balls to score from and didn’t bowl well enough.”