Mahmudullah blames batsmen for defeat in 2nd T20

Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah blamed middle-order collapse as one of reasons behind his team's defeat in the second T20 here, saying the visitors failed to measure the momentum of the game while batting.

Indian spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal (2/28) and Washington Sundar (1/25) stemmed the run flow in the middle overs to restrict Bangladesh to a sub-par 153 for 6 after the visitors got off to a bright start in the second T20 on Thursday.

"I don't think we need to change much but there are few areas in the game, especially when we are batting, which we need to rectify. We have missed the momentum, we could have got 170. We were 102-103 after 12 overs, so we should have got 170-180," he said.

"Losing a few wickets in the middle overs cost us and these are the areas we need to look on. The openers gave us a very good start and that was a 180-plus wicket. The wicket was very good to bat on.

"It was the momentum of the game that we needed to understand. We should have understood the threats we faced at that particular time, but we didn't recognise those things and fell short of those runs," the Bangladesh skipper admitted.

Mahmudullah squarely put the blame on his batsmen for not putting up a winning total on a fine Rajkot wicket that offered good carry and bounce.

"I think if you have more than 40 dot balls in a T20, you have less chance of winning the match. We played 38 dot balls there. Maybe that's okay, but there will definitely be opportunities to improve," he said.

"But our batsmen had to take more responsibility. The goal was to get a good score but we couldn't do that. It is the failure of our batsmen."
"The wicket was good to bat on and the new ball was coming nicely on to the bat. If you get a good start early on, especially batsmen like Rohit and Shikhar (Dhawan), it is hard to stop them on that wicket."