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For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. <\/a><\/p>\nThe chase itself hardly reflected any structure. From the very first over, nerves were on display and Parvez Hossain Emon perished — an unforced error from his part. By the start of the fifth, when Pakistan had pushed Shaheen Shah Afridi into a third consecutive over in search of a breakthrough, a mix-up between Towhid Hridoy and Saif Hasan almost led to a run out. The very next ball, Hridoy perished — caught after an expansive shot that defied game awareness.<\/p>\n
That moment triggered the slide. All Bangladesh really needed to do was survive Shaheen’s third over with minimum fuss.<\/p>\n
Saif, their standout performer in this Asia Cup, had earlier hinted at intent, batting with the maturity of a seasoned campaigner, striking a six and a boundary off Haris Rauf to release pressure. But Rauf returned in his next over to remove him. Unlike others, his dismissal was far from being reckless — he played with soft hands but misread the pace, producing a leading edge to the infielder. From then on, Bangladesh were left reeling.<\/p>\n
The 11-run defeat might suggest a close contest, but in truth, they were out of it long before Rishad Hossain’s late blows narrowed the margin.<\/p>\n
The batting order itself invited scrutiny. Opener Tanzid Hasan Tamim was dropped, with lower-order batter Nurul Hasan Sohan brought in. Sohan’s stay was as shaky as ever, marked by edginess and a lack of control.<\/p>\n
Even more puzzling was the Shak Mahedi’s promotion to number four despite averaging just 11 in ODIs, while stand-in captain Jaker Ali Anik batted at No. 7 and never looked like having the clarity of thought or execution in the middle. Simmons defended the former move, arguing it was to counter pace in the Powerplay: “You look at it as number four. I look at it as sending someone who could have taken on the pacers at that time. We were still in the Powerplay, so he could have countered the fast bowlers a little bit more than if he went lower down to face all the spinners.”<\/p>\n
Still, the broader context pointed back to Litton. In form, he had anchored Bangladesh’s batting at number three, starting the tournament with a fifty and setting the tone in the chase against Sri Lanka. But an untimely muscle strain in practice ruled him out of the last two Super Four games. Simmons reminded: “Bangladesh chased 160 two games ago with the same batting order. We are not a team that can lose [Tanzid Tamim] and the captain simultaneously and easily replace them.<\/p>\n
“We are not at that stage yet, though we are getting there. But losing our captain, who was in such good form, has been a big issue for us,” said Simmons.<\/p>\n
Pakistan now play India in the title decider on September 28 at the same venue.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fri Sep 26, 2025 11:02 AM Last update on: Fri Sep 26, 2025 11:26 AM Ekush Tapader from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-170054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}