'To win three with them is a miracle'

The turn of events for the Barisal Bulls in the Bangladesh Premier League this season has been unfortunate. They seemed a formidable outfit when they had won three out of their first four games this season. However, their performance deteriorated from the Chittagong leg onwards and they failed to add any more wins.

Yesterday the Comilla Victorians, arguably the weakest team of the competition, thrashed them by eight wickets and Mushfiqur could not keep his calm. He came down hard on his players.

“When a team gives away 10 extra runs while bowling, they try to make it up by batting well. For us it has been the opposite. We haven't been able to come back.

“I think we have consistently given away 10 to 15 runs more in every game and also dropped two catches every time. I think the fact that we managed to win three matches with this team is a miracle,” Mushfiqur said after the match yesterday.

“The players in the team should have at least performed as per their reputation. Sure enough, we weren't a champion team but we had the quality to finish in the top four.

“We didn't have a player like Chris Gayle who could take us over the line, but we always needed two to three players to perform every time. [Dawid] Malan, [Shahriar Nafees] Abir bhai did well in the start. But later on we didn't get a set of performers to do well.

“In general you would expect at least two-three players to bat throughout the season instead of expecting all the seven players. We tried to swap players but the outcome was the same no matter what,” he added.