Zim vs Ban 3rd T20I – Towhid Hridoy pleased with T20I series win despite ‘injuries and limited options’

Mustafizur Rahman was ruled out of the entire T20I series in Zimbabwe because of hamstring and knee issues. Shoriful Islam didn’t play a game in the series because of his own hamstring injury. And Nahid Rana picked up a side strain in the second T20I, ruling him out of the last one. That Bangladesh won the series despite such “limited options” has pleased captain Towhid Hridoy, himself a replacement captain for the injured Litton Das.

“For me, it was a great result since I was leading the side for the first time,” Hridoy said after Bangladesh won the decider by four wickets in Bulawayo on Sunday. “It was a bit challenging because Rana got injured in the middle of the second match. We didn’t have any option in the last match. Shoriful is also injured, and we missed him.

“There were 13 players in our squad [by the end]. We had to fight with them. But before that, the maximum number of players who came here got injured. Rana is our biggest strength. But he suddenly got injured. After that, we realised it’s a bit tough for us. But, at the end, when we replaced him [with Abdul Gaffar Saqlain], he did well [1 for 31 in the decider].”

The last time Bangladesh had travelled to Zimbabwe for a T20I series, in 2022, they had lost 2-1. And on this tour, Zimbabwe had won both the one-off Test and the ODI series (2-1).

“It was very challenging for us because we couldn’t do well in the two previous series here, we couldn’t meet our team’s expectations. But the conditions here are a bit difficult, though we shouldn’t say that – as professional players, we have to quickly adapt to these conditions, which we were able to do in the T20 series,” Hridoy said. “But in the last two series, we made some silly mistakes. In this T20 series, we had a lot of injuries and had limited options. The fact that we got a good result despite that [is heartening].”

In the last 12 months, including this Zimbabwe series, Bangladesh have won 15 T20Is and lost 13. And there was the setback when they skipped the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka this year because of non-cricketing reasons.

“As a T20 unit, in the last couple of series, we did really well at home and away. But as a whole group, we need to develop our game in some areas,” Hridoy said. “For the World Cup, it’s too far [late 2028]. We are focusing on match by match and series [to build up to it].”

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