Worst World Cup of Bangladesh cricket history: Shakib
Netherlands’ Paul van Meekeren celebrates after taking the wicket of Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan (R) during their 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup match at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Saturday. — AFP photo
Sports desk:
Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan admitted that the humiliating 87-run defeat against the Netherlands in Kolkata on Saturday is hard to swallow.
Leading up to the World Cup, Bangladesh were eyeing something special in the tournament but after winning their opening game against Afghanistan, they haven’t won any. Bangladesh won three games in every World Cup since 2007 but that streak could end now as they are lined up to face Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia in their last three games.
“You can say that (it is Bangladesh’s worst World Cup performance) without any doubt,” Shakib told reporters after their disappointing loss to Netherlands at the Eden Gardens on Saturday. “I don’t have an answer to “why” we played this way,” he said.
“I don’t want to blame anyone. We are a better team than our performance. We were disappointing in this tournament, something that the whole dressing room would agree,” he said adding that he is still searching what went wrong for them.
“It is a hard question to answer (where we have gone wrong). You have asked the wrong person. From my point of view, we need to change a lot of things. But it is not the time to talk about these things. It is disappointing that we haven’t played in the semifinals in 24 years. The way our people focus about cricket, we should have done better.
“I don’t know what’s going on. As a batting unit, if you ask me to summarize our six matches with the bat. We were very poor other than Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim. All other batters were not up to the mark. I thought we were well short of confidence in both departments. We couldn’t meet up with our high expectations. I thought we bowled really well after losing the toss. We were sloppy in the field. We could have restricted them to 170-180 but we should have chased 230 total,” he added.
Bangladesh’s decision to demote Mahmudullah at number seven against Netherlands despite him scoring a century in the last game against South Africa raised quite a few eyebrows.
“We have a team of limitations in batting and bowling. We are not comfortable bowling or batting in different times and positions. We are not comfortable facing bowlers in certain times, so we have to adjust all the time. If our batters did well at the top, Riyad and Mushfiq could have performed their roles,” he said.
“I agree with you that maybe if Riyad bhai batted higher in the order, we could have done well. Other than that, we have all been disappointing.”
Shakib added that former ODI skipper Tamim Iqbal’s departure from the 50-over set-up can have an impact in their World Cup journey more so after the two were at loggerheads just before the global tournament.
“It could be. I don’t know what’s in everyone’s heart. I don’t disagree with you. It may have had an effect,” he added pointing his fingers towards different groups that used to be active during the era when Shakib and Tamim shared the national dressing room.
