Despite his repeated admittance of having ‘some minor problems’ within the World Cup squad, Bangladesh national cricket team skipper at the same time claims they are a ‘balanced team’, they are ‘capable to reach the quarterfinals’, and oddly, he also says: “We can win if we play our original game’.

It’s really embarrassing to find our captain contradicting at almost all the press meets, before the World Cup and even after it kicked off.

Here are some quotes by Shakib and some other members of the team:

Shakib on Thursday at the pre-match press meet said: “We’ll not take any pressure of a must-win-game … we will rather try to avoid mistakes in our previous matches. And we’ll win if we can do so.”

And, the world’s number 1 all-rounder, after losing Friday’s match, blamed the batsmen for the nine-wicket defeat to West Indies.  He also claimed the team’s batting side was not weak.

Making a shift rather taking the on himself, he also said, “Expectations have no relation with the defeat. We know how to handle pressure. I think it was just not the day for us.”

Shakib (Feb 8, Sheraton Hotel)–

“Our aim is to reach the second round, which is difficult. But, we’re capable to make it.”

Asked to comment on the lacking in the team, he said, “We do have some mistakes. We’re working on it. We’ve practice matches before the event and we hope to overcome those.”

“We’re a well-prepared team except some trivial problems.” He, however, did not elaborate what the problems exactly were.

A confident Shakib said: “We know the playing conditions, our boys are fit and preparation is fine. Besides, we’ve improved a lot in the last 12-15 months.”

He also said, although he was the youngest captain in the World Cup and also young in the team, he did not face any problems with his teammates.

Rather he said he motivates the team members saying that World Cup is no big deal but “a game of bat and ball”.

On the following day, four major players of the team faced the press at the same venue. I wondered to see their confidence, which I knew was ‘fake’, ‘exaggerated’ — meant to be voiced to make the opponents think twice about the Tigers, may be…

Tamim Iqbal (Feb 9)–

Claiming that the national team had been playing well in the last three years, he said: “Any team thinks at least twice before playing the Tigers.”

Regarding the first match against mighty India, who was beaten by the Tigers back in 2007 World cup, Tamim said, “Things are different now. But, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. If you are good enough, you can win.” — what a vague comment (!!!)

Though he observed: “It needs five to six batsmen to win a match,” he also commented surprisingly that “we are all capable of doing something extraordinary”.

Ashraful–

The star batsman, who has the highest runs (84) for any Bangladeshi in the World Cups, was hopeful to reach the quarter finals by beating Ireland, the Netherlands, and two among West Indies, South Africa and England. — Don’t know how he was sure about losing to India (!!!)

Khan Abdur Razzak–

The left-arm spinner, eldest among the team members, said: “Those in the squad are doing well.”

In a quite stereo-typed tone, he was also hopeful to reach the quarter finals… (!)

The most astonishing moment came, when I asked Tamim, after he left the table packed with journalists, about the batting lacks within the team, HE WAVED HIS HAND IN THE AIR, THREW MY WORDS AWAY AS IF I WAS TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING ODD, TOTALLY WRONG…

The hope of Bangladesh’s batting, who told reporters that he wanted to be the highest scorer in this World Cup, did not pay heed to my touching that sensitive point, which our players have long been maintaining — what we call ‘silly outs’ or ‘খোচা মেরে আউট’ in Bengali.

Promising Mahmuduallah was sensible and cool enough to answer my query…a lot of thanks to the lower-order all-rounder.

He said they still had the problem with the batsmen going bowled playing fussy shots. “We can’t play the shots we want to.”

He also said they were trying to address the problem during the practice sessions.

And we witnesses what happened in the next few days until Friday, when most of the batsmen went back to the dressing room being in a hurry…and so on…

After the match, he said the Tigers’ hope to make it to the quarterfinals had not yet been shattered. “Our chances are still there…I know it has become much harder… But we haven’t lost the hope.”

“We’ll be able to play in the quarterfinals if we can win two matches out of the next three,” he said.

Shakib said the team made many mistakes against West Indies but they would correct them in the match against England.

SUCH A SHAMELESS CAPTAIN (!!!)…

Tiger’s captain justifies after the unexpected result of Friday’s match.