Shoriful: Needed to find my rhythm, bowl better spells

The Bangladesh pace-bowling unit was itching to give a good account of itself, Shoriful Islam said, after going for plenty in the second ODI, where they conceded 331 and lost by 142 runs to give up the series. On Tuesday, in the third game, the quicks were in form, bowling Afghanistan out for 126 before chasing it down in 23.3 overs.

Shoriful led the way for Bangladesh, returning career-best figures of 4 for 21, although he couldn't finish his 10 overs due to cramps. He said that the second game had come up in the bowlers' meeting.

"The five of us in the pace attack [Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Hasan Mahmud, Ebadot Hossain and he] are like a family. We trust each other," Shoriful said. "We are being rotated so that everyone is getting match time. We are prepared to play at any moment. We discussed [the second ODI performance] in the bowlers' meeting. We tried to get back to our rhythm. We talked about trying to bowl better spells."

Bangladesh conceded 256 runs in the first 36 overs in that game as Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran cracked centuries. Bangladesh fought back to take nine wickets for 75 runs in the remaining 14 overs, but the damage was done.

Shoriful looked determined to succeed on Friday, often talking to the batters and sending off Ibrahim, Rahmat Shah and Mohammad Nabi, who he dismissed in his first spell. He later added debutant Abdul Rahman to his tally.

"I mostly tried to replicate what I have done in training - the aggression comes into the body language," he said. "I sometimes tell myself in the dressing room to be calm, but it sometimes comes automatically in the matches.

"Ibrahim bhai is a good batter. I tried to bowl my best delivery to him. I had the belief since I got him out in the last three occasions. We have the mentality to beat them. We will be hungry to beat them in the Asia Cup and World Cup."

Discussions with Chandika Hathurusingha - which included the head coach sending him videos to help him improve - had helped, Shoriful said.

"I have been training hard for a long time. Hathu sir gave me some extra work. He showed me a few things. He sent bowling videos when I was at home. I am applying those in training now. It is always a good feeling to contribute to a win. I got lots of support from the team, especially from Mushfiq bhai [Mushfiqur Rahim], who has been backing me."

Afghanistan took the series 2-1, but head coach Jonathan Trott wasn't happy with the performance of his top-order batters in the last game - they were 32 for 5 before getting to 126.

"We got out, the guys didn't execute, they didn't adjust to conditions, they played bad shots," Trott said. "Mentality wasn't right today. It is not the first time this has happened in the last game of the series as well. It is something we have to fix if we want to get better as a side.

"We can't keep relying on one or two players to get us runs. Everyone has to chip in. The way that Azmat [Azmatullah Omarzai] applied himself at No. 7, it showed how you should go about batting on this pitch. [Litton] Das [who scored 53 not out] showed how to play on that wicket."