The day after the debacle

What was the common syndrome that almost every Bangladeshi experienced during the long night after that heart-breaking one-run defeat suffered by the Tigers at the hands of India at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Wednesday? Apart from a few exceptions everybody had a sleepless night reflecting on those three deliveries in the pulsating ICC World T20 game.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) President Nazmul Hasan Papon, who was the first to arrive at the ITC Sonar, the temporary abode for the Bangladesh cricket team ahead of their final group league game against New Zealand, said that he had not felt so devastated as he did on Wednesday night.

“How do you expect to sleep after such a devastating defeat? I think the whole country could not sleep last night. The players were in a state of coma. I have not seen coach Chandika [Hathurusingha] so emotionally drained before. I did not even feel like talking to anybody and only talked with them while we were travelling from Bangalore to Kolkata today,” Papon told this reporter while checking in at the luxury hotel.

Opener Tamim Iqbal refused to talk about that three-ball horror show that denied Bangladesh a famous win against India on their home soil but reflected on the brighter side of a lost battle.

“It was a different atmosphere and a different feeling for us until those last three deliveries. We were playing in front of a crowd cheering the opposition team. They were applauding when their batsmen were scoring runs or their bowlers taking wickets. It was a similar case for us when we played against India in our home ground. But when we hit a four and six a pin-drop silence gripped the ground yesterday. It was really something different for us,” said Tamim while he was waiting for a car to arrive at the hotel lobby.

When the Indian fans talk about rivalries they still talk about their team's battle against Pakistan. They are actually obsessed with that age-old rivalry. But on Tuesday, the Chinnaswamy crowd gave a different meaning to a different rivalry when they sang inspirational songs to lift the morale of their team, pleaded for a six when their idol Virat Kohli was batting, and rooted vociferously when Ravichandran Ashwin was bowling. In the middle it was the Indian team who were feeling the pinch of a big-match atmosphere against a more dominating 'younger brother'. And it was quite evident when they dropped a few catches from that match-fright syndrome.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, who looked like the team to win till the 236th ball of the game, gifted India a lifeline in the competition.

But Tamim said that they would get many more opportunities to beat India on their home turf and probably win a World Cup in five years' time.

“We are playing good cricket but we are still not a very good team in the T20 format. We could have been a very good T20 side had our BPL [Bangladesh Premier League] not been suspended for two seasons. Look at the players we have got from the BPL. Taskin and Sabbir and Rony are the products of BPL. And had we not missed two seasons we could have gotten more players,” observed the exciting opener.

Four years ago when Bangladesh lost that Asia Cup final against Pakistan the whole nation cried with their sporting heroes. But after Wednesday's defeat against India an emotional yet more matured Tigers fans took little time to pardon their two sporting heroes -- Mushfique Rahim and Mahmuduallh Riyad -- for the strong sense of dignity and pride that this brand of Tigers have injected into them.