What a good team does when it wins is analyse the reasons why they have won. I have read that the Australians always have a team meeting after their team have achieved a victory to find out the REASONS they have won, thus putting these reasons into action, and making these actions a habit. A team like Bangladesh and any other team needs to do the same.
Reasone we won:
1 - Opening partnership - 42 runs partnership, the best ever against the South Africans. Maybe it took more time than it should have (13.4 overs) but still the team got a start and a defendable target was achieved at the end of the day. {Here I dont want to start if it should be JO or SN opening and we could have scored more runs etc..} What I want to say is the opening platform was given, new ball was seen off, the moisture (small amount of it) ws gone...and the pitch was now good to bat on.
2 - Partnerships - 76 run partnership between Asharaful/Aftab. The saviour and one of the main reasons we won is because of this beautiful partnership. And this beautiful partnership gave birth to another partnership between Ashraful/Mashrafe of 54 runs which came in quick time and took us to a defendable total.
3 - Quick wicket/s - Rasel did the job this time. One quick wicket and suddenly the team gets the first hint of a victory. It goes like we have taken one, why cant we take others? Mashrafe bowled well too, though didnt get a wicket. His first 6 overs went for less than 4 an over.
4 - RRR - Read it anyhow you want. Required Run Rate or Rafique/Razzak/Rasel. These 3 bowlers not only picked up wickets but also kept the pressure on, rarely bowling loose deliveries which in turn increased the RRR.
5 - Saqibul Hasan - The mainstay of our batting usually, but on this day he didnt score much. His 10 overs for 49 and picking up 2 wickets in 2 balls were of utmost importance. Bangladesh has only 5 bowlers in the team currently and all of them have to bowl to the best of their ability. Thankfully they did so especially Saqibul who is not as experienced as the other 4 but yet did a good job.
6 - Fielding. Two run outs. Catches were taken. Singles werent been given. Ball wasnt allowed to clear the inner ring. More than 12 overs without a boundary ! All of this due to good fielding. This is what lifts the team up. Young legs - this is one thing we expect the tigers to do consistently. Field well even when the going is not easy, and suddenly a great catch, a run out, something out of the box will pop out and the team will sense victory.
7 - Keep wickets in hand. The last 7 overs brought 70 runs. The SUPERB advantage of keeping wickets in hand.
8 - Team effort - Bangladesh is an imporving side and to beat other teams we should always play as a team. Good bowling should be backed up by good batting and vice versa.
These are the reasons we won (there can be more, to me though these are the main). If you notice 7 out of the 8 reasons have been achieved against India too. Except for the opening partnership we did all the reast perfectly and India found it hard. Against South Africa we have done it now. We are improving and it doest matter who calls us underdogs/minnows. As long as we play well everything else is secondary.
There are other reasons too like individual brilliance (Ashrafuls knock against SA, Tamim against India, Mashrafes 4 against India). But theses keep changing in every other match. Do these consistently. Keep simple things simple. You dont need to do anything outrageous and then get out. Best of luck to Bangladesh. They have given us reasons to celebrate, please dont stop giving us the reasons to keep on clebrating.
