Mirpur: After the poor performance in the T20 World Cup, Pakistan made a plethora of changes to their ODI squad for the series against Bangladesh. They dropped players like Babar Azam, Saim Ayub and Fakhar Zaman, among others who were faring decently in the 50-over format. But their fortunes haven’t changed as Bangladesh have bundled out Pakistan for a paltry total of 114 runs in the opening game of the three-match series.
Pakistan handed debuts to four players – Abdul Samad, Maaz Sadaqat, Sahibzada Farhan and Shamyl Hussain. Farhan was their hero in the T20 World Cup, ending the tournament as the leading run-getter and he started his ODI career on a decent note as well. In fact, the new opening pair of Pakistan – Farhan and Sadaqat – added 41 runs, but once the partnership was broken, all hell broke loose.
Nahid Rana ran through their batting line-up, accounting for the first five wickets to fall. He hurried each of the Pakistani batters with his pace and even the experienced players – Mohammad Rizwan and Salman Agha – couldn’t arrest the collapse. Bangladesh skipper Mehidy Hasan Miraz also joined the party to pick three wickets and thanks to his spell, the hosts didn’t let Pakistan make a comeback at all.
Pakistan collapsed from being 41/0 to 82/9 in around 14 overs and the inexperience was on show completely. Having said that, several of their players in the squad are still experienced and even they couldn’t get going on the day. They could’ve been folded for a score under 100, but thanks to Faheem Ashraf, he top-scored with 37 runs and stitched a 32-run partnership for the last wicket.
114 is the lowest total for Pakistan against Bangladesh in ODIs, breaking the 27-year-old record in this aspect. 161 was their previous lowest total in ODIs against the hosts. After a poor show in the World Cup, the Pakistan fans would’ve hoped for their team to do well in ODIs at least. As soon as they were bundled out for 114 runs, Pakistan were trolled on social media, with many joking around their intention of winning the ODI World Cup next year.
Here are some of the tweets:
