World Cup 2023: Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan stumped by 'worst' display

Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan categorically said his team’s 87-run loss to the Netherlands on Saturday was their worst World Cup performance.

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Ever since posting a win against Afghanistan at the start of the tournament, Bangladesh have slumped to five straight defeats with the latest coming against the Netherlands at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

“I don’t have an answer,” said a visibly upset Shakib. “You can say that this is our worst, without any doubt. I don’t have an answer to why we played this way.”

Bangladesh had the Netherlands in trouble at 63/4 but paid the price for dropping captain Scott Edwards twice in three balls when he was on zero. Edwards went on to score 68 runs and emerge as the top-scorer.

Chasing a modest 230-run target, Bangladesh were dismissed for just 142 in 42.2 overs with Paul van Meekeren (4/23) and Bas de Leede (2/25) playing a crucial role.

Bangladesh are ninth in the 10-team points table with games remaining against Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia.

“I don’t want to blame anyone. We are a better team than our performance. We were disappointing in this tournament, something that the whole dressing room would agree,” said Shakib.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he added. “As a batting unit, if you ask me to summarise our six matches with the bat. We were very poor other than Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim.”

Mahmudullah had slammed a century in a losing cause against South Africa while Mushfiqur has scored two fifties in the World Cup.

Shakib, as well, has been a shadow of himself, managing just 65 runs in five matches after scoring 606 runs in the 2019 World Cup.

“All other batters were not up to the mark. I thought we were well short of confidence in both batting and bowling,” said Shakib.

“We couldn’t meet up with our high expectations. I thought we bowled really well after losing the toss but we were sloppy in the field.”

“We are not comfortable facing bowlers in certain times, so we have to adjust all the time. If our batters did well at the top, Riyad and Mushfiq could have performed their roles,” he added.