New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori did not hesitate to declare himself a relieved man after his side secured a 75-run victory on Saturday to level the three-match series after suffering a seven-wicket defeat in the first match.Both the Bangladesh and visiting skippers admitted that it was not easy to score runs on such a slow wicket but the Kiwi skipper still confessed to some anxious moments while defending the 212-run total.The Tigers however squandered their chance to make history by winning two consecutive games against a Test-playing nation apart from Zimbabwe as the slow batting of the home team had no answer to the disciplined bowling of the Kiwis as they tumbled to 137 in 42.4 overs."Absolutely it's a relief. I think when you lose the first game and put a mediocre total on the board than there are some concerns. So we were little bit nervous in the dressing room even though we scored 200-plus runs," stated the Black Caps skipper in a post-match briefing.Understandably home captain Mohammad Ashraful was disappointed at letting such a chance pass by and explained that the 'too slow batting' was the reason behind the heavy defeat."Yes, we were close to a series victory as our bowling and fielding was good but we batted too slowly.
It was not easy to bat in this kind of wicket where the ball stops a bit. It's very difficult to judge the ball and it was difficult to make up when we scored only 50 runs off 20 overs. In this situation you can only chase down if you had a good start," said a disappointed Ashraful, who played 86 balls to score team highest 40."It was tough to comeback in the match after the departure of Shakib (Al Hasan). The asking run-rate went high. We had a plan to take the powerplay early but everything changed after the dismissal of Shakib. If we had not lost a few quick wickets then we might have used the powerplay at a later stage," he added.The Bangladesh skipper however praised the opponent bowlers highly at defending just a 200-plus total.
"I must say they (New Zealand) read the pitch brilliantly and bowled very well," he said.Ashraful was also not ready to blame left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak who conceded 25 runs off the last over to man-of-the-match Jacob Oram, including three sixes, although both the all-rounder and his captain agreed that it had swung the momentum the Kiwis' way."On many occasions he has bowled the last over successfully but it's bad luck for him today," defended Ashraful adding that the bowling of Syed Rasel, who claimed three wickets to rip through the New Zealand top-order, came as relief for them after the left-arm seamer recovered from injury.Ashraful also toned down the notion as many thought that it could have been a different story if they had been careful about a run out against Jeetan Patel as the TV reply clearly showed that the last batsman was short of his crease while Mashrafe Bin Mortaza distorted the stumps from mid-off with the scoreboard reading 176 for 9.
"We didn't receive any message from the dressing room as we went for the next ball very quickly and these things can happen," he said.Vettori however was witty enough: "We would have still won the match [as Bangladesh were bundled out for 137]"."These things really happen in cricket. It's part of cricket. I think when you play lot of cricket, you go through bad decisions. I think we bowled very well and fielded very well. Mills [Kyle], [Tim] Southee and Jacob [Oram] bowled really well to put pressure on the Bangladesh side. They got too far away. The way we bowled and fielded, it reasonably won the game for us," he explained.The New Zealand skipper was not happy with his side's batting performance but hoped that his guys will show their real character if they got a proper ODI wicket in Chittagong."
It wasn't the greatest score and we are lucky that Jacob put some runs on the board for us. Once again we were scratched with the ball and Bangladesh bowled very well at the start and put pressure on us."So it's another disappointing batting performance, but on a difficult wicket. I don't think the wicket was very good for one-day cricket. We were lucky to get 212 and in the end it was good enough. Hope Chittagong will offer a true ODI wicket," Vettori added.Ashraful was also hopeful about the series deciding third match."In the last three games we put pressure on the opponents and won one game.
Today our bowling and fielding was not bad and we will need all our three departments to click in the last game to make our dream come true," hoped Ashraful.