In a recent interview with reporters, the southpaw says, ‘We all were disappointed after the Test series where we lost without proving any intent to fight. We tried hard but failed to execute our game plans in the field.’
Bangladesh lost the first Test in Antigua by a big margin of an innings and 219 runs and where they registered their lowest Test totals of 43 runs. Bangladeshi batting line was totally demolished by the Caribbean pace attack. Shakib Al Hasan and his team were rudderless in the second Test in Jamaica too, where they lost by 166 runs. In both of the Tests, Bangladesh were under the mark in all the departments of the game.
After the Tests, Bangladesh won the ODI and the T20 series. Tamim played a pivotal role with two centuries and one fifty in these two series. He hit his 10th century in ODI series opener at Guyana and again played a series winning knock at St Kitts. Despite his own pleasing performance Tamim did not mind to credit his captain.
‘But, we won the very first match of two limited-over series playing the great brand of cricket. Usually, ODI is our favourite format of the game and we showed in the West Indies, why it is. I want to say the name Mashrafe bhai (behind this success), he brought a lot of positivity to the team after the awful series in Tests. Too many negative thoughts were spinning in our head, we were hopeless about getting some results in our favour in ODI and T20is.’ The number one opener of Bangladesh added.
Mashrafe is known for his good motivational skills. When he was handed captaincy in 2014 for the second time, he had to motivate his team from the disappointment that they were going through. Bangladesh were totally clueless in the year of 2014 when they lost 22 matches out of 27 before Mashrafe took over the role of ODI captain in October that year.
He further said, ‘it is right that, Mashrafe bhai did not bat or did not bowl on behalf of anyone. But the confidence to fight back, that he brought to the team was invaluable.’
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