Bangladesh all-rounder Mahmudullah admits their top-order batsmen cannot afford to have another poor performance against Pakistan if they want to reach the Asia Cup final.

The Tigers defeated Afghanistan in a tense last-over three-run victory on Sunday to keep their qualification hopes alive.

But their batting frailties showed once again with Liton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim the only two top-order batsmen to reach double figures with Bangladesh 87-5 inside the first 20 overs.

Imrul Kayes and Mahmuddulah saved the team with a valuable 128-run stand to set a total of 249 but the latter insists the batsmen must take more responsibility to give them a strong chance of beating Pakistan for a place in Friday’s final against India.

“Our batting, particularly in the top haven’t fired and that’s an area we need to improve before the next game,” said the 32-year-old, who was named man of the match after his unbeaten 74.

“I think one reason for that is we couldn’t do much because of a very tight schedule. We had to play three games in four days in energy sapping conditions and also a lot of travel between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.”

He added: “We didn’t give any thought of the next game because we had to win this game to keep our hopes alive. We have achieved the result we wanted and now we’ll have to start think about the next game.”

Mahmudullah insists the Afghanistan win, which ended a two-match losing streak, will give them a lot of confidence and praised the bowlers for keeping their cool and defending their total despite Afghanistan needing seven off the last over.

“It’s always good to win for the country especially when we had to comeback from a very difficult situation. I think our bowlers did very well to win this game for us,” he added.

“They had the Afghanistan batting always behind the required run-rate and at one point they required more than nine per over.

“Our bowling department did a great job, especially Mustafizur (Rahman) when he had to bowl the last over to defend seven runs.”