U19 World Cup 2020: Bangladesh' Shoriful Islam ecstatic after beating India in final

Current Bangladesh U19 left-arm pacer and U19 WC winner Shoriful Islam has expressed his happiness on winning their maiden ICC title, especially after beating India in the final. Islam expressed how winning the trophy became even more satisfying after getting the better of India, who had enjoyed more success in bilateral ties or previous encounters.

Bangladesh lost to India by two runs in the semi-final of the U19 Asia Cup in 2018 and then again in the final of the Asia Cup the year after that by just five runs.

Islam explained how the WC victory was even more special due to the victory against their neighbours who had previously kept their nerve better than Bangladesh in crunch situations.

According to him, instead of worrying about how the opposition were preparing, the young Bangladesh cricketers focused on their strengths and worked upon their weaknesses to give their best on the field and fight till the very last ball.

“Actually, we lost two close matches against them in the past. One was the Asia Cup semi-final (in 2018) and the other was (Asia Cup) final (in 2019). I can’t describe what those defeats felt like. Before taking the field for the final, all I could think about was what they did after winning and how we felt after losing. So, we didn’t want things to turn out as they did before. We wanted to do our best and fight with all our strength till the last ball.”

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Islam stressed that playing with an aggressive mindset from the word go and taking on the battles against the opposition batsman head-on, rather than waiting for the perfect time or opportunity worked wonders for Bangladesh.

He stated that in today's cricket, bowlers trying to induce a wicket or trying different things were more likely to succeed than just planning without any execution whatsoever.

“We have seen in cricket that to play aggressive cricket, you have to do that and to make the batsmen angry or to induce something in him so that he wants to take me on and so that a wicket falls. When you start aggressively, the batsmen watching from the outside become very tentative.”

Islam took a total of nine wickets in six WC matches while taking 2 for 31 in the final against India.