‘A big knock was required from me or Shakib’

Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal was disappointed at his lack of form at the World Cup especially because he was unable to make good on his decent starts.

Yesterday against Australia, Tamim fell after a 74-ball 62, at a point when the team were looking upto him to carry the innings after Shakib Al Hasan's departure.

"In the last game I was batting well, against Australia it was the same but I've not been able to capitalise with important runs," Tamim was quoted as saying by ICC.

"The team expects a lot from me, I expect a lot of myself, and until now it's not been great. But I still have three games to go to try and change that around.

Mushfiqur Rahim's unbeaten century saw them fight hard before eventually falling 48 runs short, leaving Tamim pondering what could have been.

"It was at least 40 runs too many that we conceded," he admitted. "There was a time that we were bowling really well in patches, we had a very good four or five overs, but they took the game away from us.

"Glenn Maxwell's innings [32 off 10 balls] was important for them and then we're chasing 380 which was a lot for us, we felt we had a chance if we were chasing 330 or 340.

Bangladesh were beginning to up the ante in terms of run-rate when Shakib fell in the 19th over. The left-handed duo of Tamim and Shakib had featured in a 79-run partnership for the second wicket and Tamim feels that if one of them had carried on for a bigger score, the Tigers would have had a fighting chance. 

"Fifty overs is a long time so if we had got to 30 overs at around 200 then we'd have been in a nice position with wickets in hand, and we know how deadly they are with the new ball," he said. Shakib fell to a soft dismissal after a fluent 41 while Tamim tried to dab a Mitchell Starc delivery to third man but dragged it back to his stumps.

"We kept out wickets, the problem was that after Shakib and I got set, we both got out – if one of us could have played a bigger innings, we might have got a bit closer to the target."