'Losing Tamim was a setback'

At the conclusion of their match against Australia, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza's charges will feel disappointed. They will be hurt not because they put in a brilliant show at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore yesterday, but they will feel as though they missed a golden opportunity.

Save for a couple of inspiring performances, the rest of the team, for most parts of the game yesterday, looked slightly drained. Yes, there were a number of positives. Mushfiqur Rahim played a few good drives, Shakib Al Hasan found his line with the ball and Mahmudullah Riyad continued with his stunning form and these aspects will probably help the Tigers in their next game against India.

However, the thing that will probably haunt them the most is the fact that their opponents won the game despite not being at their best. The Australians did chase down the total in the end, but they had only themselves to blame for the rather close finish.

On any other day, considering the amount the Tigers have improved in the last few months, they could have very well gone home. However, the fact that they weren't playing with their top three players in the side, seemed to affect them on the field.

Mashrafe though claimed that the off-field events, the exclusion of Taskin Ahmed, Arafat Sunny and even Tamim Iqbal who couldn't play yesterday's game because of a sickness, weren't in their minds. He blamed the defeat on the ' little mistakes' on the field.

"This ground is a bit high scoring and we couldn't score as much because of our mistakes. Had we avoided them we could have gone a lot further," said Mashrafe at the post-match press conference in Bangalore.

"I think everyone tried their level best, but I guess there were just too many things happening. Losing Tamim before the match was a big setback for us. When three of your main players leave and you don't have your in-form players, then it becomes very difficult. But we still tried to keep our focus on the game and nothing else," he added.

It was a wicket on which Bangladesh needed to score at least 20 more runs and it therefore wasn't a surprise when Mashrafe described Tamim's absence as a big setback. Bangladesh lost Soumya Sarkar in the very first over, and the top order struggled to score since then.

While Mohammad Mithun and Sabbir Rahman did hit a few boundaries, they were dismissed soon after, something that put more pressure on the middle order.

Tamim, according to Mashrafe, was suffering from a fever since yesterday morning.

"He did feel better in the afternoon and looked good. But once he came to the field and did a few sprints, he felt worse and wasn't fit enough to play the match," Mashrafe explained. 

Despite Soumya's bad run, Mashrafe defended the opener. "Batsmen can go through such phases. I feel he just needs one knock to get back. There's a lot of risk in T20 cricket. He just needs his flow back," said Mashrafe.