'Lost sight of the processes'
'Lost sight of the processes'
It was only November last year when Bangladesh skipper Mushfiqur Rahim spoke glowingly of whitewashing New Zealand 3-0. Yesterday, after being whitewashed 3-0 by Sri Lanka, Mushfiqur painted a bleak picture of the Tigers' prospects ahead of the Asia Cup, in which they will open their campaign with a match against India on February 26.
"In the last Asia Cup we were the runners-up, but with the state of affairs this time around we are heading into the tournament with nothing to lose, I feel. The way we are going now, if that continues it will be very difficult. We may even have to struggle against Afghanistan," said the skipper at the post-match press conference in Mirpur yesterday.
In a damning assessment of his team's progress, Mushfiqur seemed to imply that it may have been a red herring while bringing up the salient point that the litmus test of home improvement is how the team fares against subcontinent sides.
"In the last two series [home wins against West Indies and New Zealand], if you talk about our batting, bowling or fielding there was some lacking. Even though we won, we talked among ourselves that when we play against big teams like India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka we have to improve upon these areas. Unfortunately we could not do that throughout this series," Mushfiqur said.
A captain known for his attention to following processes, Mushfiqur felt that his team had lost sight of that in this series. "Maybe we have lost a bit of focus there, maybe we are thinking too much about the win. Win comes at the end of the day, before that the processes are important. We may have lost sight of the processes. As a team maybe we are taking on too much pressure. Some of our batsmen are going through an off-form period which does not help either.
"We have the mental and physical capability to bounce back. One message that I would like to give to my countrymen is that, though like us I know a lot of them have been disheartened by our performance, but in our upcoming series we will play much better hopefully," said the skipper.
The captain also felt that the absence of Tamim Iqbal and Mashrafe Bin Mortaza through injury and the banned Shakib Al Hasan had an effect. "There is nothing to do about Tamim's injury. Hopefully we will try and wait till the last moment to see if he is ready for the Asia Cup. About Shakib, obviously that was an unwanted incident. He also realised it. As a captain I beg forgiveness for it and hopefully it will never happen again," he said of Shakib's indecent gesture on live TV, which served to make the series gloomier still.