Simmons happy with Bangladesh's 'exciting, aggressive' style of play against Afghanistan

Bangladesh coach Phil Simmons is happy with the "exciting, aggressive" cricket his side has been playing in the T20I series against Afghanistan, adding he was particularly impressed with batting contributions from the lower middle order.

Bangladesh are 2-0 up in the three-match series, successfully chasing down totals despite batting collapses. In the first match, they struggled against Rashid Khan, losing six wickets for just nine runs before Nurul Hasan and Rishad Hossain finished the game. In the second, they lost three wickets inside the powerplay and were saved by the middle order, Nurul again contributing with a 31 not out.

"The good thing about winning close games is that you gain confidence when you are coming to a close game," Simmons said. "It's good that we are doing that, but it's not good for any of us our hearts. Yesterday the openers showed what they are made of, and today, the lower middle order showed what they are made of.

"The way we want to play is exciting, aggressive cricket, and that's what we've been doing. We played their spinners well, at least today. That's their strength. Yesterday we didn't do that very well, but today we played their spinners a lot better. We did what we came to do today. ]Nurul] played a really great knock and brought us back from a stage. Jaker [Ali] and Shamin [Hossain] started it, and Nurul finished it for us. That's what we have been asking our batsmen to do: make sure that they take responsibility when they get the chance."

Simmons also said he was not concerned about Jaker's form. The Bangladesh captain reached double figures for the first time in four innings, hitting 32 off 25 balls, and struck his first six in seven innings.

"When you look around the world, international batsmen fail a couple of times. I don't see any problem; he had a couple of bad games, and that's normal with batsmen. Cricket is like that."

Bangladesh's bowlers have stepped up in both games, with Shoriful Islam, Nasum Ahmed and Mohammad Saifuddin bowling tight spells. Bangladesh gave away 35 runs in the powerplay and just 40 runs in the last five overs to restrict Afghanistan to a below-par score in the second T20I.

"I think our bowling has been improving consistently, and it is at a stage now where we know we can depend on our bowling, whatever combination we use," Simmons said. "I think our bowling has been that good over the last five, six, or seven weeks. It is part of our growth.

"The bowling has put us in this position for the last two games. Yesterday, they started really well, and we pulled them back. Today, they started well, but we bowled well in the middle and especially at the end."