‘Best’, yet only disappointing

Bangladesh national cricket team finished their 2022 T20 World Cup campaign with two wins from five games, their best result in terms of points gained in the history of the tournament, but yet it the end seemed like a bitter disappointment as almost all of the players failed to have an impact along with the team missing out on an opportunity to finish in the final four.

Bangladesh beat Netherlands and Zimbabwe in the tournament and seemingly had the win in the bag against India, but the middle-order capitulated to lose that, then followed by a defeat to Pakistan with a lacklustre performance in their final game of the Super 12, a win in which would have handed them a place in the semi-final.

Simply put, Bangladesh had a place in the final four handed to them on a silver platter, but all they did was throw it away and finish fifth in the group behind Netherlands on net run rate.

But yet, the team preferred to just call it their best World Cup to date.

“This is the best tournament Bangladesh has ever had in a T20 World Cup. We’ve never won two games in Super 12s in the history of Bangladesh cricket, so we’ve done that, so I think the boys should be proud of themselves,” Bangladesh technical consultant Sridharan Sriram said during the tournament.

Especially, the tournament was simply disappointing for the players on a personal level as there were very few outstanding individual performances, especially from the batters.

While Najmul Hossain Shanto ended the tournament with 180 runs and two fifties, the most among the Bangladesh batters, his approach was questionable throughout the tournament.

Liton Das played Bangladesh’s best innings in the tournament with his 60 runs off 27 deliveries against India, which was ruined by a non-firing middle-order, but that was it as he played as an opener, his best batting position, only twice in five innings.

The whole middle-order failed as the highest run-scorer from there was Afif Hossain who only managed 95 runs in five innings. Skipper Shakib Al Hasan spent his most horrid World Cup with the bat to date as he only scored 44 runs in his five innings, although it included two dismissals which were wrong calls from the umpire.

Yasir Ali Chowdhury, Nurul Hasan Sohan, Mosaddek Hossain, and Soumya Sarkar- all of these batters failed to leave a mark as Bangladesh’s batting beyond the top was nothing more than detrimental for their results.

The bowling was better when looking at such a disastrous batting out. Taskin Ahmed managed to pick up eight wickets and was a menace for the batters in the early overs, and while Mustafizur Rahman struggled to pick up wickets, he was economical.

Hasan Mahmud was another consistent performer for the Tigers as he picked up six wickets whilst being a tad expensive.

It’s not a mistake to say that Bangladesh can indeed take several positives from this World Cup. But it would also be a mistake to not recognise the fact that it was disappointing and they failed to take up their opportunities.

Maybe based on their T20I form in the last 12 months, the performance was beyond expectations. But when there were chances to find a final four place, not showing up and failing to take that opportunity marked their whole campaign as a big disappointment.