BartaBangla Report :: National cricket team landed Bangladesh on Tuesday after an eventful Zimbabwe tour where they failed to live up to the expectation.
Given the form and experience, Bangladesh were absolute favourites in the tour but they had to end up with drawing the Test and Twenty20 series while losing the ODI series. The agony aggravated only with Mushfiqur Rahim’s sudden announcement to resign from the captaincy following Bangladesh 1-2 loss in the ODI series. Mushfiqur’s resignation issue gave the sense of an internal clash inside the team. However after the Twenty20 series, the captain said the resignation announcement was an emotional decision and it was a mistake to disclose this sort of thing in the midst of the tour.
It was expected Mushfiqur would have to face a volley of question regarding the resignation issue upon his arrival in the country. And there was no exception.
“I admitted it was a mistake for my part. I should not announce this decision in the midst of the tour. It was indeed an emotional decision. However I’ll talk to the board first in this regard and then will take the final decision,” Mushfiqur told the reporters at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Tuesday.
Mushfiqur’s tenure as captain was expired after the end of the Zimbabwe tour.
After his resignation announcement, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan Papon talked to him over phone. The president later disclosed that Mushfiqur was unhappy with the teamwork which also hinted that there might be some internal feud inside the team.
When his attention was drawn to this issue, Mushfiqur promptly denied any internal issue saying that, “I told him that we could not play as a team. We had some plans for every game which we couldn’t implement in the ground. That’s it.”
Head coach Shane Jurgensen also rubbished the off-field row behind the loss.
“Look there were certainly some obstacles that we had to overcome. I am really proud of the boys, they did well. Let’s just say that there were times when they took the home ground advantage to another level. At the same time it was not an excuse for our performances. But it was a good effort from the guys to overcome them. It was an improved series from the last time we toured there,” Jurgensen replied in a query.
The captain was extremely unhappy with the practice facilities in Zimbabwe.
“We faced a difficult time in Zimbabwe as we didn’t have proper support from Zimbabwe. We didn’t get any net bowlers and overall there were some other issues regarding the hospitality. But I don’t make it any excuse. Eventually we played bad cricket,” the diminutive skipper revealed.
The umpiring issue was also something to note as some bad decisions against Bangladesh turned the game completely. Throughout the series Bangladesh had to taste those sorts of umpiring errors.
“Most of the decisions went against us which completely changed the complexion of the game. Everyone saw what happened there. I don’t deny that we had not had any mistakes but umpires only compounded our woe,” he commented.
However keeping aside the umpiring and practice facilities issue, Mushfiqur thought that their performance was not up to the mark in the series and luck was not also with them.
“We misread the condition and could not apply ourselves well according to the demand of the condition. The last time when we played there, it was seaming wicket. But this time we observed the wicket changed its nature which was another reason to misread the condition,” he informed.
“Our top order was not up to the mark. If the top order including me could play properly, we could have got different result.”
On the other hand, according to Shane Jurgensen Bangladesh were much better team in this series than they were in 2011 when they also lost ODI and Test series.
“Definitely it’s not a failure. We improved from the last series than Zimbabwe. The conditions were foreign to us, particularly in the ODI series. We batted first each time and I thought there were a lot of positives, that we scored good runs in all those innings batting first, which is an area that we need to continue to learn. We won a Test match overseas, which hasn’t happened in a couple of years,” he described.
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