“Mustafizur is the best bowler of our team into the wind. He has to do a lot of work in the next match in Wellington. We wanted him to be fresh for the next game,” Rhodes said at Hamilton after the play of the second day.
Bangladesh are struggling in the match as the New Zealanders were leading by 217 runs at the end of Day-2. Jeet Raval and Tom Latham scored tons for the hosts. They posted 254 runs in the first wicket stand which was bigger than Bangladesh’s first innings total.
New Zealand were on 86 without losing any wicket at the end of the first day. Resuming the innings on the Day-2, they added another 365 runs losing four wickets.
“Both of their openers played extremely well. We should not take anything from them. They have really made a good foundation and continued that today,” Rhodes further said after Bangladesh’s day of toil.
Bangladesh are playing three pacers - Abu Jayed, Ebadat Hossain and Khaled Ahmed- in the match. Without Mustafizur, Rubel Hossain and Taskin Ahmed, this is totally a new pace-attack for the Tigers. They bowled 66 overs together but failed to grab a single wicket.
Rhodes said this attack needs a bit of time and experience and with these, they can provide a lot of trouble for the opponents in the future.