Captain Shakib al Hasan admitted that this is the worst World Cup Bangladesh have experienced compared to the past four editions he played.
The Tigers failed to chase down only 230 runs against the Netherlands on the relatively good batting wicket at Eden Gardens and were bundled out for just 142 in 42.2 overs to follow the heavy defeats in their last four games.
When asked whether this is the worst World Cup campaign for Bangladesh from 2007 onwards to the current edition where Shakib has been ever present, the Tigers skipper agreed that this is undoubtedly the worst one.
“Yes, you can say undoubtedly this is the worst World Cup for Bangladesh and I agree to that. We were maybe underprepared for this World Cup. But that’s not an excuse and it cannot help our current situation,” Shakib said at the post-match press conference at Eden Gardens Saturday.
Bangladesh are contesting their seventh World Cup after qualifying in 1999 for the first time.
Since then, 24 years elapsed but Bangladesh have never been able to qualify for the semi-finals.
There was much hype in 2019 but they failed.
This time around, there were a lot of expectations as well and they came up short yet again.
When queried what Bangladesh need to do as a team to reach the semi-final stage in a global tournament, Shakib indicated long-term planning is required.
“It’s tough to say. You have asked the question to wrong person actually. But from my end what I can say, to alter the situation a lot of things have to be changed. But I think this is not the right time to talk about it. Obviously, it’s disappointing that we were unable to play in semi-final in 24 years of time. The way people in our country love and follow cricket, we should have performed much better,” he said.
Bangladesh only won against Afghanistan in the first match and suffered five defeats in a row.
Their next three opponents are Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia.
