'The wickets have not been great' - Bangladesh coach Russell Domingo slams Lahore pitch for T20I series

Bangladesh lost the second T20I of the three-match series by 9 wickets as Pakistani bowlers ruled the roost and veteran Mohammed Hafeez and skipper Babar Azam had a field day. With this loss, the Tigers have also lost the series 2-0 with one match to be played on January 27, Monday. The visitors had opted to bat first in both the games but managed to post below-par totals in both games.

This has led to much criticism of the pitches at the Gaddafi Stadium, first from the Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah Riyad after the first match. He pointed out that the wicket was extremely sluggish and batsmen found it difficult to score runs once the ball got older later in the innings. The ball was holding to the wicket and batsmen found it extremely hard to launch the ball in the air. Now, he has received support from coach Russell Domingo as well.

Russell Domingo labels the Lahore pitch ‘average’

Russell Domingo, who is on his first assignment with the Bangladesh team as head coach, slammed the curators at the Lahore Stadium for preparation a pitch that gave nothing to the batsmen and termed it average. Bangladesh ended up with below-par totals of 141 and 136 in both matches after winning the toss and choosing to bat.

“The wickets have not been great and a little bit average. It was not easy to bat on them, the pitch was a bit better today but we have a very young batting line-up. We decided to bat first both times because it didn’t look like an easy wicket to bat on and we thought that if we put up a respectable total we could test and squeeze their batsmen in the chase,” Domingo was quoted as saying by First Post.

The head coach also felt that the no.9 ranked Bangladesh team really gave the no.1 ranked Pakistan team a run for their money. He also mentioned that the team was missing the experience of Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim with Shakib been banned and Rahim refusing to tour Pakistan.

He also talked about his personal experience of coaching a talented and young side in Bangladesh and he felt that his job would be to test the depth of the country’s cricketing talent as the senior players won’t be around forever. “This is my first tour with them and there is work to be done with them. We have all got things we need to improve upon and take our game to the next level,” he added.