The Bangladesh cricket team harkened back on Friday to the days when they would participate in a practice session on the scheduled last day of a Test match, having already lost the match within four days. Captain Mushfiqur Rahim, Nasir Hossain, Tamim Iqbal, Mominul Haque, Mahmudullah, Imrul Kayes, Abdur Razzak and Shamsur Rahman took part in a voluntary training session at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium on what should have been the final day of their first Test against Sri Lanka.
Bangladesh, whose comprehensive loss on Thursday represented their first innings defeat in Tests in over two years, have been defeated by an innings in 36 of the 82 Test matches they have played in since being awarded Test status in 2000.
The Tigers were handed their first humiliating defeat in their second Test match against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in 2001, a fate that would occur regularly until their last innings defeat at the hands of Pakistan in 2011, after which it appeared that Bangladesh’s fortunes were changing.
Though Bangladesh still struggled to produce results in Tests, they had largely avoided embarrassment after that match against Pakistan until Sri Lanka inflicted a morale-crushing innings and 248-run defeat upon them this week.
The experience was a new one for Australian head coach Shane Jurgensen, who arrived at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium with some of his charges for an optional training session.
‘Obviously we have really been disappointed with our performances as it is not the standard that we’ve been keeping to lately,’ Jurgensen said on Friday.
‘Probably we were outplayed in all departments in the last game,’ said Jurgensen.
‘We really hadn’t had a game like this since I have been around, or for a while.’
The Australian hopes the defeat will not affect the confidence of the Tigers and he emphasised getting over it quickly.
‘It hasn’t been often, and that is the way we have to look at it,’ said Jurgensen.
‘We’ve got to look at the positives and say that it’s just a bad game.’
‘This has happened before in Zimbabwe, where we lost the first Test match, though not in the same manner, and that is when you work harder with a purpose.’
‘I will just work harder and get theirs head in the right space and make sure we have good plans in Chittagong.’
‘We need to make the process right and need to square up the series.’
Bangladesh lost the first Test in Zimbabwe and came back to level the series against the hosts in 2012.
Jurgensen added that the developments at the ICC meeting were also responsible to an extent as the issue distracted the players, though he did not offer that as an excuse for the failure.
‘I think there was also a little distraction before the game that probably didn’t help either, with the ICC, but at the same time there are no excuses,’ said Jurgensen.
‘I think there was not so much discussion; I think there was more disappointment and it was [an] unrequired distraction. As I said, there is no excuse for that, but that’s a bad thing to have happened on the eve of a Test match.’
-With New Age input
