Bangladesh fast bowler Taskin Ahmed urged the country’s people not to see the just minus point as they are trying to get their feet in the T20 format of the cricket.
“We won three matches in the T20 World Cup for the first time. So there are positives, but there are negatives too. We are disappointed like the rest of you. We didn’t play up to expectations,” Taskin, who is also the vice-captain of the team said here today after Bangladesh team arrived back in the country from West Indies.
“We never had a great number in T20s. We are improving slowly. We can’t just look at the minus point. There is no denying fact that your frustration is justified. You have to keep faith on us. We are trying to give you a good win.”
Bangladesh won three matches out of four in the group phase but lost all three matches in the Super 8 phase. What, however, hurt the people was the manner in which they surrendered to Afghanistan in the last match of the Super 8s.
Bangladesh needed to chase down 116 runs in 12.1 overs on tricky surface but the batters didn’t show any intent to gun it down.
The batters’ performance was terrible in their 47-day long tour in Americas. Firstly, they conceded a 2-1 series defeat to associate nation the United States of America (USA) due to their batters insipid batting and their run draught continued in the T20 World Cup too. Bowlers, however, saved the face to some extent. In fact the bowlers performance was key in taking the side to the Super 8 for the first time since the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2007.
“Yes it is terrible if you talk about the batting but at the same time if you look at the statistics, I think every teams’ batting department suffered in the USA this time. Bowlers got a lot of help. We only got better batting wickets in the West Indies,” Taskin said, adding that he hasn’t seen such a long batting patch of the batter in his 10 years with the Bangladesh team.
“I haven’t seen such a long bad patch for the batters in my 10 years playing for Bangladesh. I hope it goes away quickly.”
Taskin didn’t play the three-match T20 series against the USA due to his injury but returned to the World Cup to lead the side’s bowling attack, which fared fairly well in favourable conditions.
Pacer Tanzim Hasan Sakib and legspinner Rishad Hossain were the findings from this World Cup. Rishad, so far, stays in joint-third position among the tournament’s top wicket-takers with 14 wickets while Tanzim took 12 wickets.
“Tanzim and Rishad were incredible. They were among the tournament’s top wicket-takers which proved we have some future stars emerging from Bangladesh. It says that we have ability,” he opined.
Taskin said like the fans they were hurt by the outcomes of the tournament. He further said that they should chase down Afghanistan’s target in 12.1 overs which could give them the ticket of the semifinal.
“We could have done a lot better. We were all quite disappointed with the last match. We tried to win it in 12 overs, but when we realised it wasn’t possible, we tried to win the game. We still couldn’t win.”
