Bangladesh cricket team’s stand-in captain Tamim Iqbal has emphasized the importance of the senior member in the team performing ahead of their tie in the third and the final game of the ongoing series against hosts Sri Lanka on Wednesday. Bangladesh in the short tour have already conceded a series defeat losing the first two games and are now in verge of a possible whitewash.
The Tigers came into the series without some key members in the likes of ODI captain Mashrafe bin Mortaza, ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan and Liton Das. The cricketers had to miss out the tour due to injuries and personal reasons.
However, there was still belief on the squad that has been sent to tour the island but except for wicket-keeper batsman Mushfiqur Rahim none other has been able to live up to their standards. Mushfiq has been the key to Bangladesh batting which looked shaky in both games due to top order failures. In the first game, Mushfiq struck 67 followed by an unbeaten 98 in the second. But, both those efforts went in vain as other failed to back him up and Bangladesh lost those matches comprehensively.
But skipper Tamim was confident about the ability of his players.
‘’We do miss a lot of first eleven players but I won't go back to the thing again. From the first press conference till this one, I say that I back the fifteen that we have. Yes, if we had the luxury of having everyone then yes we could have had a different team,’’ said Tamim at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Tuesday.
‘’At the moment we still have a game to go, I still back my fifteen and I trust them. We just have to play good cricket, we didn't play good cricket. And if we don't play good cricket then even if we had the best of the players in the team we would still be failing. So, we have to play some good cricket with the fifteen that we have and I have complete trust in them,’’ he said before admitting the importance of seniors to perform.
Misery of the top-order found @BCBtigers struggle and eventually concede a series defeat as they lost the second ODI against host @OfficialSLC by seven wickets at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo Sunday.https://t.co/kNTGCYTZIa#BCBTIGERS #BCB #TIGERS #BANGLADESHCRICKET #BANGLADESH
— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) July 28, 2019
Bangladesh had come to the series with hopes of revival from their below expected performance in the World Cup. However as it happened, the Tigers found themselves in deeper holes. Tamim confessed it by saying that they have been a letdown as team.
“We have had a lot of high hopes coming to this series. I thought we let ourselves down as a team. I thought we had our moments in patches we couldn't capitalize and we have only ourselves to blame. Sri Lanka played some really good cricket, they were a better team than us especially in the last two ODI's but as I said we have only ourselves to blame,” said the Bangladesh captain for the series.
Among the senior players, it has been particularly Tamim and middle-order batsman Mahmudullah that has been under scrutiny for their below par performances, not only in the series but also in the ICC Cricket World Cup. Despite the hard personal time Tamim believes they have no option but to go all out in order to avoid a clean sweep against the Lankans.
‘’Look at the seniors they have played so many matches and they have a lot of experience of turn it around. Not only as a captain, but also as an individual player I have thought about this. The truth is when the team doesn’t play well and you look at these players they have been playing for the national team for a long time. They have been scoring runs for 5-6 years. That could be me, Mahmudullah or anyone. It is disappointing that I couldn’t do that well. When the team needed us, we should have stepped up.,’’ Tamim said.
