Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan has expressed deep concern over the underwhelming performance of their batsmen at the ongoing Asia Cup. He emphasized that the inconsistency serves as a stark reality check for them as they prepare for the ODI World Cup, scheduled to take place in India from October 5 to November 19.
During Saturday's 'Super 4' clash against Sri Lanka, where they were chasing a target of 258, Bangladesh found themselves dismissed for just 236 runs. With the exception of the young talent Towhid Hridoy, who fought valiantly to score 82 runs, none of their other batters managed to go past the 30-run mark.
Following their 21-run loss, Bangladesh now find themselves on the brink of elimination from the tournament.
"Our batting is going downwards for the last six months (in ODIs) since the series against England and later Afghanistan, now in this tournament and we need to work on it," Shakib was quoted by the ICC website.
"We are concerned with our batting and we need to see those areas and work on it so that we can rectify those areas. This tournament before the World Cup is hugely beneficial because we need to have a reality check," he added.
Bangladesh faced defeats in three of their four matches in the Asia Cup so far. They suffered losses twice to Sri Lanka and once to Pakistan, and in all three defeats they found themselves bowled out by the opposition. Their only instance of crossing the 300-run mark occurred in their victory against Afghanistan, where they posted an impressive 334/5.
Looking at their performance since the beginning of this year, Bangladesh have participated in 16 ODIs, with 7 wins, 7 losses and 2 matches ending in no-result. They faced a 2-1 series loss to England in a three-match series at home, secured 2-0 victories in both home and away series against Ireland and suffered a 2-1 defeat to Afghanistan on home turf in July.
Shakib also shed light on Bangladesh's ODI performance, highlighting their strength in bilateral assignments while recognizing the need for improvement when it comes to major tournaments.
(AI image)
"We always play well in bilateral series and you cannot say we are a bad team, but our big test is in this kind of tournament where we don't perform extraordinarily," he said.
"We won three matches in 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019 World Cup, so people can say a lot of things but when we have a reality check, usually we fail. It is good that the tournament (Asia Cup) was played before the World Cup and everyone will think how we can solve this problem and only after that can we do better.
"We don't have history because we have not succeeded (in big tournaments), though we played two or three finals in Asia Cup and if we could win, it would have been better but we are always a promising side."
Bangladesh's World Cup campaign will begin on October 7 with the match in Dharamsala against Afghanistan.
(With agency inputs)
