Hail Ashraful!

"We played competitive cricket in Pakistan". This statement came from none other than the captain, Mohammad Ashraful upon the Bangladesh team's arrival at the Zia International Airport from Karachi yesterday.
Fans may have been suffering from unbearable pain after watching their team being whitewashed in the five-match ODI series, especially the way they surrendered so meekly, and the manner in which they lost the one-off Twenty20 game against Pakistan, but the Tigers skipper still has ample positive words under his belt to say.
Before leaving the country, Ashraful talked about winning one or two games in the series but on Monday, he said that their main target was to score 200 runs consistently.
So the results were immaterial for them and thus the defeats of 152 runs, seven wickets, 23 runs, seven wickets, 150 runs in the one-day matches and 102-run loss in the Twenty20 match were nothing more than some figures only.
Coach Jamie Siddons had some disappointment over the last match's performance, although the Australian didn't forget to remind his same old information about the gap between his side and the top-ranked opponents.
But his skipper was not an unhappy man with the outcome of the series.
"I think our performance was much better than our previous two series against New Zealand and South Africa. I believe we were competitive in the series if you considered our performance in the last two series. You know we have a long-term plan towards the World Cup of 2011," explained the ace batsman.
"We had the target of scoring 200 runs consistently in the series and we achieved it thrice which I think is a big success for us. It could have been a much better series for us if we did not lose the last ODI that badly," he said adding that he couldn't remember the last time when they scored 200 in three games against any top team.
Ashraful was also not totally dissatisfied with his own performance despite his lean run of 30, 9, 22, 16, 4 in the one-day series and said that he is not under pressure.
"My performance was not too bad in the series as I got starts in most of the matches. You must have luck for a big score," said Ashraful, when asked about his poor performance.
Young Shakib Al Hasan, who made a superb hundred in the series, however came up with a realistic explanation about his team's performance in the series.
"Actually the team's morale is down after defeats one after another against the top sides which was the main reason behind our bad performance and we have to get out from this situation," said the young left-hander.
Vice-captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza also echoed his sentiment.