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Shakib Al Hasan answered, “without a doubt,”
when asked if this was Bangladesh’s worst ODI World Cup campaign. He was
commenting soon after they had lost to Netherlands in Kolkata by 87 runs, their
sixth straight loss in six games.
At Eden Gardens, the end had arrived suddenly. The
final two wickets, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed, went in the space of
three balls as thousands of Bangladeshi supporters who had crossed the border
to support their team rushed for the exits. “Our aim is always next World
Cup” was written on one of the banners raised by Bangladeshi fans, which
was a jab at BCB president Nazmul Hassan’s 2022 statement. Bangladesh is in
ninth place, above England but below the Netherlands, meaning that this
campaign is all but ended.
“You can say that [it is Bangladesh’s worst World
Cup performance] without any doubt,” Shakib said after his team had been
dismissed for 142 in the 43rd over while chasing only 230. “I don’t have
an answer as to why we played this way. We were sloppy in the field. We bowled
brilliantly. We haven’t batted the way we can bat throughout the tournament. It
is a big concern. Today was another day when we totally gave the Dutch the two
points. It is hard to swallow. It is very difficult to digest. These things can
happen in cricket.”
He said only Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah were
batting well, and agreed that Mahmudullah could have been given a higher
position in the line-up. “As a batting unit, if you ask me to summarise
our six matches, I would say that we were very poor. Other than Mahmudullah and
Mushfiqur Rahim, all other batters were not up to the mark.
“If our batters did well at the top, Riyad
[Mahmudullah] and Mushfiq could have performed their roles. 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.”