Unless Bangladesh start to put together top-order partnerships, they will continue to suffer like they did in Chattogram against South Africa, according to captain Najmul Hossain Shanto, reports espncricinfo.com.
The home side sunk to an innings-and-273-run defeat, bowled out twice in a total of 89 overs.
Bangladesh's match aggregate of 302 runs is the lowest by any team at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, reputed to be the best batting pitch in the country.
It played true to that reputation when South Africa posted 575 for 6 over the first two days, before Bangladesh imploded with the bat.
They lost 14 wickets on the third day, ending the match bowled out for 159 and then 143 following on.
Mominul Haque, who made 82 in the first innings, was out twice in one session.
South Africa wrapped up a 2-0 series win, having won the first Test in Dhaka by seven wickets. Bangladesh had struggled there too, bowled out for 106 on day one.
"We have been batting like this for a long time," Shanto said. "If you don't get top-order partnerships, the rest of the batters will find it difficult in red-ball cricket.
I don't know how our top-order batters prepare or think, but if it goes on like this, this will be the result.
This was a good wicket. Even in Mirpur, the type of wicket it was, we shouldn't have got out so quickly. Overall, we didn't bat well in these two Tests."
While there have been individual efforts in recent Tests such as Mominul's 82 out of Bangladesh's first-innings total of 159, or even his century in Kanpur, these have tended not to come with sufficient top-order support.
The lower order, instead, has been the source of resolute partnerships such as the 138-run seventh-wicket stand between Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Jaker Ali in the second innings in Dhaka or the 103-run ninth-wicket stand between Mominul and Taijul Islam after Bangladesh slipped to 48 for 8 in Chattogram.
There was also the famous recovery from 26 for 6, courtesy Litton Das and Mehidy, that enabled Bangladesh to win the second Test in Rawalpindi two months ago, but Shanto felt these lower-order stands were only papering over the top-order cracks.
"We are making runs individually," he said. "Mominul bhai made a century, but we couldn't support him in Kanpur.
Shadman [Islam] made 90-odd [in the first Test in Pakistan] but there was no support [from the top-order batters] at the other end. The top order can only help the team with big partnerships.
We talk about winning after being 26 for 6 in Pakistan but our top order didn't bat well. Top-order runs will ensure consistent performance from the team."
Shanto conceded that his own lack of runs was also contributing to the top order's collapses. He made 9 and 36 in Chattogram, as Kagiso Rabada first dismissed him with a brilliant delivery in the first innings, before he inside-edged one to Tony de Zorzi at leg slip off the left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy.
Shanto has scored just a single fifty in his last 17 Test innings, 15 of which have come his appointment as full-time all-format captain in February.
"I have an important role as a top-order batter. I am supposed to score runs," Shanto said. "It is not happening, and the worst thing is, I am getting out between 20 and 40. It is not good for the team. I have to concentrate more in my batting."
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