Shakib says he batted at seven to keep 'left-right' combination going

Bangladesh suffered yet another loss in the ongoing tri-nation series owing to a poor batting show. Najmul Hossain Shanto opened the innings but couldn't maintain a good strike-rate. The likes of Afif Hossain and Litton Das couldn't find boundaries in the middle overs. Only Nurul Hasan batted with a lot of intent. Captain Shakib Al Hasan, who returned to the XI after missing the first game, surprisingly batted as low as at number seven.

Shakib opined that two batters from the top four should bat deep in order to create a platform for the finishers.

"Two of the top four have to put their hands up and play until the 15th or 16th over. We'll keep trying, we have a few more games to come, they're day games and would suit us better," he told the broadcasters after the match. 

"I thought their spinners bowled well on a used wicket. We started well, tried to play some big shots, lost a couple of wickets in the middle and never regained momentum," he added.

Shakib revealed that he batted lower down the order to keep the left-right combination going. "I was supposed to bat further up, but two spinners were bowling and we wanted a left-right combination."

Shakib lauded the bowlers for their efforts in the two games and said that the batters have their work cut out.

"The bowlers have done well in both games and the fielding has been good, those are the positives, we need to work on our batting though. It's hard to keep the energy levels high when you're losing games, but we'll look to build momentum going into the World Cup," he concluded.