Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan has been critical of his performance in the T20 World Cup in Australia after the Tigers were eliminated from the showpiece event by losing to Pakistan by five wickets.
Shakib was subject to a controversial decision by the umpires, dismissed in the first ball he faced before grabbing 1-35 with the ball in the Tigers' final group stage match on Sunday at the Adelaide Oval.
The talismanic 35-year old allrounder was far from his best through the tournament, grabbing only 44 runs with the bat and six wickets with the ball in five matches at an economy rate of 8.78.
Asked how long he would sport the Bangladesh colours, Shakib, who along with India’s Rohit Sharma are the only players to have appeared in all the T20 World Cups so far, said: “I don’t really know. As long as I'm fit and performing, I'd love to play.”
“Regarding my own performance - I could've done better… both with the bat and the ball.”
Speaking about the team, he said: “In terms of results, this is the best performance we had in T20 World Cups. We still could've done better. But having said that, with the new guys coming in, with the changes, this is the best we could expect.”
On Sunday, Shadab Khan bowled a low full toss straight at the pads of Shakib and South African umpire Adrian Holdstock responded late to the appeal by lifting his finger at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
Shakib appeared sure that the ball had clipped the lower inside of his bat and went for a review. The ultraedge technology showed exactly what the Bangladesh captain had insisted. But to everyone’s surprise, the third umpire upheld the on-field decision.
Shakib, now dismissed in the first delivery he faced, was visibly upset by the decision and kept waving around his hands in disbelief. He kept pointing to the large display on the ground as the umpires could only push him on his back to ask him to depart. Shakib reluctantly complied.
Shakib’s departure followed a collapse where Bangladesh lost six for 36 runs and restricted them to only 127 for 8, reports bdnews24.com.
“At the halfway stage we were 70 for 1. We wanted to get somewhere around 145-150, which would've been a reasonable total on that pitch. We knew it was going to be difficult for the new batters so we wanted set batters to carry through to the end, which didn't happen,” Shakib later said.
Pakistan eased their way to the target with 11 balls remaining and pipped a spot to the semis along with India from the group, thanks to a Dutch upset of South Africa.
In the Tigers’ previous match against India, the team bemoaned being denied a fake fielding penalty after Virat Kohli feigned a throw. The penalty for such a violation is five runs and Bangladesh lost the game on the same margin.
