Bangladesh played well in World Cup but not enough to convince Shakib Al Hasan

His country might have missed yet one chance of making the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup 2019 and crashed out by losing to India yet again after the 2015 edition, Shakib Al Hasan has had a terrific personal journey. The 32-year-old left-arm all-rounder slammed over 500 runs and took 11 wickets in eight matches in the tournament with one game yet to be played. Promoted at No.3 in the batting order, the No.1 all-rounder in ODIs made a major mark in the tournament and could well be picked as the Player of the Tournament still.

Shakib, who has hit two centuries and four half-centuries in the tournament, was guiding his team well in the must-win clash with India at Edgbaston on Tuesday. However, he did not have enough support from the other end and eventually fell for 66 and Bangladesh went down fighting by 28 runs to crash out.

The side, which has won three games in the tournament, will like to wrap up with a win over Pakistan at Lord’s on Friday to finish fifth in the table. Bangladesh had started off well with a 21-run win over South Africa but a close defeat against New Zealand and a washed-out game versus Sri Lanka hurt them at the end.

Didn’t come here only to play good cricket

Shakib though is not happy with just playing good. “It is right that we played good [brand] of cricket, but we didn’t come here to play good cricket. We wanted to win, but we couldn’t do it. I think it’s very disappointing because we couldn’t fulfill our dream that we had for this mega event. From that perspective, I think it’s very disappointing. if we could have done few small things better, I think we would have got a better result,” the all-rounder who also completed 6,000 ODI runs during the tournament, was quoted as saying by CricBuzz.

One of Bangladesh’s major shortcomings in this World Cup has been their bowling. They have conceded over 300 runs in as many as five games out of eight and were left over-depending on their batting.

According to Shakib, had Bangladesh showed some better applications then they would have been in a better position. He said although there were some positives from the tournament, but talking about them didn’t make any sense now because the eventual results went against them.

Also read – Wahab Riaz had once lost focus from cricket before returning to centre stage

“This this is an area that we have to change,” he said, adding the Bangladeshi should have tried more desperately.

Bangladesh is one of the most experienced teams in this World Cup with a number of players in their ranks playing in their fourth edition.