Shakib Al Hasan termed the side’s performance as their worst against the Netherlands in the World Cup 2023.
Shakib on defeat against the Netherlands
Bangladesh has played six matches so far where they have only one victory in the ICC tournament. After their victory against Afghanistan, they faced back-to-back defeats in the tournament.
According to the skipper, their defeat against the Netherlands was the team’s worst performance ever. They lost the match with 87 runs difference to end their hopes of reaching the semi-finals.
Bangladesh have three victories in each World Cup tournament since 2007 and this streak will probably be broken as they set to face Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Australia in their last three matches.
On this occasion, the skipper Shakib Al Hasan said, “You can say that (it is Bangladesh’s worst World Cup performance) without any doubt. 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 added.
“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 on 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 further added.
Despite Mahmudllah scoring a century against South Africa, he was moved down in the batting lineup which surprised everyone.
“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 the departure of the skipper Tamim Iqbal from the squad also had an impact on their World Cup campaign.
“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 concluded.
Bangladesh will be playing their next World Cup match against Pakistan on October 31 at Eden Gardens.
