Benny Howell believes Sylhet can still turn it around

Fortune Barishal breathed a sigh of relief after breaking out of the circle of losses with a morale-boosting 49-run win over Sylhet Strikers on Tuesday.

The Sylhet franchise, however, cannot get out of the hole they are in as they continued their run of losses, making it five out of five. All-rounder Benny Howell, though, feels that one win can turn the tide.

Sylhet’s batting has been abysmal this BPL. They played in the final last season but apart from Zakir Hasan, no one has shown the required consistency this season. Howell does not think the problem is with whether the team has gelled or not.

“We actually get on very well as a team. We’re good friends off the field. So it’s not that. It’s just funny at the moment. We’re playing some really good cricket in parts and then average cricket in other parts. We just couldn’t bring it together. It’s not ideal with five losses in five games but we are not out of it yet,” the English all-rounder said at the press conference following the fifth defeat.

Ahmed Shehzad cracked a 41-ball 66 before Mahmudullah Riyad hit a blistering 23-ball fifty to help Barishal post 186 for five. Howell mentioned Riyad’s innings as the knockout blow in the death overs.

“I think if we could have restricted them to 160 runs, it would have been nice, even 170. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite get it right with the ball. We bowled well in parts and got a few wickets but probably leaked too many runs. Riyad is a specialist at that position and he took us down in the end which was unfortunate. Shehzad played a very good innings. We’ve just got to look at what we did right and what we did wrong and try and do more of the right. It’s just disappointing.”

What is going wrong with Sylhet, though, has become the talking point this BPL. The franchise has not been able to turn the tide despite huge crowd support during Tuesday’s game. Sylhet were in with a shout to chase Barishal’s score when Zakir and Howell stitched a 42-ball 58. Both batter departed of consecutive deliveries and Sylhet never recovered, bowled out for 137. Howell felt it was not a lack of belief that resulted in the losses.

“Yeah, we have full belief. Obviously, we are disappointed. We don’t want to be losing five games in a row; no one wants to be doing that. Even after the halfway stage, we still believed we could chase that down. I can’t fault the mental attitude at all. It’s just the skill to perform and the execution is not quite happening at the right time,” he said.