Praising Shakib Al Hasan’s innings highly, Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim held the conditions responsible for their failure in the ICC World Twenty20 yesterday. The wicketkeeper-batsman in the post-match briefing said that his team lost the game, against Pakistan by eight wickets, despite putting up a challenging total on the board mainly because of their weakness in their bowling on this kind of pitch.
“You know our main strength is our spin bowling department, but unfortunately the conditions hardly suited them and this was the main reason behind our failure in this tournament. I’m disappointed with the outcome but we had learnt something from this tournament,” explained Mushfiqur when asked about his team’s failure in the big tournaments.
Asked whether it was a plan to bounce Pakistan out, Mushfiqur said: “It was not in the plan and the bowers did not bowl accordingly. Three pacers bowled a lot of short deliveries and were duly hit out of the park, especially by Imran Nazir.
“For a long time we had not played cricket on this kind of true wickets and that’s why our bowlers struggled here and it also put pressure on us as I said our main strength is our spin bowling. We don’t have quality pace bowler like Umar Gul, so we failed in this kind of condition. But still I think there has some positives after today’s match,” he added.
Mushfiqur believed that Pakistan is the best team for this kind of wicket because they have variety in their bowling and they also have a very good batting line-up. Mushfiqur branded Pakistan and West Indies as the favourites in this tournament.
“Actually we played badly in the first match against New Zealand as we were nervous but I think we showed some character in the second match, especially in our batting, so we can take some positives from here,” said Mushfiqur.
The little man however said that things could have been different had Abul Hasan taken the catch off Imran Nazir on the first ball of the second over.
“If we got the breakthrough as early as that then it could have been a different scenario,” he observed.
He also felt sorry as Shakib’s great knock of 84 that guided Bangladesh to 175 after batting first ultimately went in vain.
“It’s a privilege to play with a player like Shakib. I think he played a tremendous knock and almost single-handedly took us in a position from where we could do something against Pakistan but we failed to support him to make him a hero in the match which is really frustrating,” said a dejected Mushfiqur.
“Shakib is the best player Bangladesh has ever produced. It would be great for Bangladesh cricket if he remains fit enough to play for the next five-six years without any break,” he added.
The Tigers return home tonight.
-With The Daily Star input
