Disappointed Mashrafe wants wickets from his bowlers

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza was particularly disappointed with his bowlers after his side's thumping 10-wicket defeat to South Africa in the first ODI, and called for an improved performance from them if Bangladesh are to do well in the rest of the series.

South Africa took only 42.5 overs to mow down a 279-run target on a flat pitch at the Diamond Oval, as Quinton de Kock and Hashim Amla destroyed Bangladesh's bowlers. It is the highest successful chase in ODIs by a team without losing a wicket.

"We have a chance to make a comeback in the next two games," Mashrafe said. "It is only natural to have a lot of talk around us but the players have to fight. We will do everything possible. The result is not coming in our favour which makes it hard to keep the positive mentality.

"I think they would have chased the total regardless, but we should have taken at least five or six wickets in the process. It may have put them under some pressure, but our bowling was just disappointing. It will be hard for us to do well if we keep bowling this way."

De Kock was particularly severe on debutant Mohammad Saifuddin, taking him for seven fours, while Rubel Hossain was hit for four fours. Amla, meanwhile, took a liking to Taskin Ahmed and collected four fours off him.

Even Bangladesh's best bowler, Shakib Al Hasan, could bowl only 15 dot balls to the South Africa openers, and conceded 48 runs from his eight overs.

There were a couple of dropped catches towards the end, but it was more of the same from the Bangladesh bowlers who did so poorly in the preceding Test series.

Mashrafe and Shakib weren't part of the Test attack, but even their relatively fresher mentality didn't help the cause. Mashrafe pointed out that the bowlers weren't able to build enough pressure to make a breakthrough.

"In ODIs, bowling in partnerships becomes more important. You can't keep leaking runs from one side because the one who is bowling well then can be taken for ones and twos. What we missed today was pressure from both ends, especially in the middle overs. But we couldn't do it from start till end."

Mashrafe brushed aside any extra pressure ahead of the game when Mustafizur Rahman became unavailable due to an ankle injury.

"We were aware of their injuries from yesterday. Mustafizur is probably out of the series from the time he got hurt yesterday. We waited for Tamim till the last moment, but the physio didn't want to take a risk. Our body language didn't reflect anything untoward when we started the day. We batted almost as planned; Shakib and Mushfiqur took responsibility by performing their roles properly."