Shakib Al Hasan slammed the poor quality of wickets in Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium Mirpur, where Bangladesh played 10 Twinty20 Internationals at a stretch against Australia and New Zealand and struggled to score runs.
On Saturday evening Shakib attended a ceremony at a city hotel, where he said that the recent performances of the batters should not be taken into serious consideration because of the characteristics of the wickets.
"See, those who played last 9-10 matches, all the batsmen are in off form because the wicket is such. Nobody did remarkably well so that you can distinguish that he performed or he did not perform well, so it's better not to count these performances. especially if I talk about the batsmen because if someone plays 10-15 matches on such a surface his career will be over if he is a batsman,” Shakib told the reporters.
"Let's not count that. those who are on the team, all are capable enough and everybody will try from their own ground to make the team win", he added.
Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hasan told the media on Friday that Shakib gave him hopes about doing well in the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup. The allrounder also expressed the same expectation but in a more cautious tone.
"How far Bangladesh should go in the tournament that is hard to tell, but our efforts will be to go all the way. But for that we must advance step by step, we will go match by match. If we can do well in the earlier stage, that will give us huge confidence. Firstly, we have to do well in the first-round matches. If we can finish the first qualification round then in the main round we will try to perform to the best of our abilities", said Shakib.
"As the format is T20, chances are there for all teams. T20 is a game of momentum, if we can pick the momentum early, I think we have a very good chance. I think we have a good enough team where we can do something better for the country,” Shakib said.
Despite poor run from that batting group, Shakib thinks that Bangladesh had a good preparation ahead of the World Cup as the team is boosted by confidence from winning matches.
"We have a great preparation because we have won the last three series. Maybe there had been a lot of criticism about the wickets and low-scoring matches, but nothing is alternative for winning matches. When a team is winning, when the winning mentality is present among every member of the team, that gives a confidence of another level. This confidence does not come even from playing very well but losing the match. We want to take that confidence to the World Cup" he said.
Bangladesh are in preliminary Group B with Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Oman for the tournament that begins on October 17 in the United Arab Emirates.
