Bangladesh's T20 prodigy Jaker Ali said on Monday (March 4) that he was confident of taking his side over the line in the last over against Sri Lanka in the T20I series opener in Sylhet but was unfortunate to have not got a good enough connection on the Dasun Shanka delivery that dismissed him in the final over for a whirlwind 34-ball 68.
Bangladesh were in deep trouble when they were reduced to 68 for 4 in the ninth over during their chase of 207 runs but Mahmudullah and Jaker added 47 runs in quick time to bring them back in the contest. After the departure of Mahmudullah for 54, Jaker continued to smash Sri Lankan bowlers to all parts of the ground and shared a quick-fire 65-run stand with Mahedi Hasan (16) to bring the equation down to 12 runs from the final over.
Shanaka removed Rishad Hossain (0) with the first ball of the final over and Jaker fell two balls later, holing out to long-off while attempting to launch a full delivery. The hosts fell short by three runs.
"I asked Rishad to give me strike and unfortunately his wicket fell but I was on strike and we needed 10 runs from four balls and I had the confidence I can do it because throughout the innings it was going well but [I] could not connect and it went to the hand and that is it," Jaker told reporters at the SICS following the game.
"If we could win the game with me scoring 10 to 12 runs... in that case I would have been much happier. I played well Alhamdulillah but if I could win the game I would have been much happier," he said. "You can see through my face how I am and every defeat is hurting and I lost the final [BPL for Comilla Victorians] too. I am sure I will not be broken and now we have to see how we can win the next game and I feel we have a lot of things to gain from this match.".
The 26-year-old Jaker said that he anticipated the T20I call-up after his heroics with the bat in the just concluded BPL, where he amassed 199 runs at an average of 99.5 and a strike-rate of 141 for the Comilla Victorians.
"I always say that when I am destined to play I will play and I was mentally prepared after Aliss got injured and Shanto had spoken with me that you have a chance to go and [asked me to be] mentally prepared and as we had spoken about it I was prepared," he said. "I came here within two days of BPL and it helped me because I came here in the T20s after that atmosphere.
"This is my home ground I was aware about the wicket and ground. I always like to play in Sylhet ground and my first-class debut was in this ground and I am aware about the atmosphere of this ground. The wicket was good to bat on and everything was going if we could win the game I would have felt happier."
Jaker credited senior pro Mahmudullah for his calculated risks early in their partnership that allowed the junior partner to settled down and get into his swing of things. "When I went to bat Riyad [Mahmudullah) bhai was there and he told me to do as usual batting and I tried to play the way I usually do and there was no extra plan and when I came to bat, Riyad got some boundaries by taking some calculative risk and I became free due to that and things become easy," he said.
"When I was seeing that Riyad was taking chances all I was looking was to get 10 or 12 [runs] in a over and that was the plan. If Riyad bhai was there I would have remained that way but when he got out I shifted my gear."
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