During their victory over Hong Kong on Thursday, September 11, Towhid Hridoy publicly defended Bangladesh’s “safety over speed” strategy. In Bangladesh’s seven-wicket victory at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, Hridoy finished undefeated with 35 off 36.
Hridoy highlighted that crossing the finish line was more important than finishing first. During the run-chase, he also lauded the clever brand of cricket and provided insight into Bangladesh’s success-first mentality. Hridoy even admitted that he was unable to hit the ball as well as he would have liked.
“We attempted to stop the game early, but I was unable to make a good connection with the ball. In my opinion, the outcome is more significant than completing one or two overs sooner. If we had lost today, you (the media) would have had something to say. Although we had the option to end the game sooner, we adhered to the circumstances. We have an attitude of constantly winning. We played smart cricket, I believe. We may have lost one or two more wickets, but we could have finished two or three overs sooner.
ESPNcricinfo cited Hridoy as stating, “We tried to hit more boundaries, but it didn’t happen.”
The 24-year-old went so far as to say that Bangladesh’s goal was to win Group B by going undefeated, citing this as one of the primary reasons they weren’t focussing on net run rate as they chased Hong Kong’s 143-run total.
“So, should we have lost to Hong Kong by going to the ground? We wanted to win. In T20s, every side can have a successful day. Perhaps if I had set a few more boundaries, we could have been done sooner. At this point, we are not concerned with run-rate because our goal is to defeat Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. He went on, “We don’t want to make things more difficult so early in the tournament.”
With seven wickets and fourteen balls remaining, Bangladesh prevailed. Litton Das, the captain, won Player of the Match for his daring 59-run knock off 39 balls. On Saturday, September 13 in Abu Dhabi, his unit will play Sri Lanka.
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