Five times when Bangladesh snatched defeat from the jaws of victory
Bangladesh have been one of the rather fast-tracked nations into the international cricketing scenario, and while they struggled to live up to the recognition of their immense potential shown initially, in the recent times they have come into their own and are no longer easy push-overs, be it any format of the game.
Be it the thrilling rout of England in the 2015 World Cup group stage match, or the come from behind win to stun a confident New Zealand in the must-win 2017 Champions Trophy match to book a berth in semi-finals, Bangladesh clearly have the knack to go on to the path to become one of the better sides around the world.
While there clearly have been lots of silver linings, their journey in recent times has been marred by occasions where either due to overly confident temperament or having their nerves succumb to the enormity of the stakes, they have faltered to lose crucial matches from winning positions.
We look at five such instances when Bangladesh got strangled into their own web of panic to lose encounters they could have won, but ended up choking in instead.
#5 Lost by 3 runs versus Windies at Guyana, 2018
Having gone 1-0 up in the series against the hosts after a dismal Test series, Bangladesh looked in a great position to give that lead an unassailable increment. After restricting the West Indies to 271, they got off to a flyer, the openers Anamul Haque and Tamim Iqbal ricocheting them to 70 runs off just 7 overs.
But once the powerplay ended, Tamim just went into his shell, letting the Windies bowlers dictate the pace of the match by allowing them to bowl dot balls on defensive lines. Despite that, a strong show from the middle order gave them a sure chance in the match and it all came down to 14 needed off 2 overs with 6 wickets in hand.
And that is when they were smothered by their own lack of self belief, Keemo Paul and Jason Holder, Windies' most ineffective bowlers so far, exploited the slowness of the surface and with the aid of some well aimed yorkers, they did not allow Mushfiqur Rahim and Sabbir Rahman to get under ball whatsoever.
And like the one haunted memory of 2016, which we get to later, Rahman and Rahim holed out on consecutive deliveries, boundaries dried up all of a sudden, panic set in and all of a sudden they needed 5 runs off the last ball.
No anti-climaxes would come as Bangladesh fell short, yet again, after being in the driver's seat for the majority of the match.