‘Mental block’ limits Tigers, says Shakib

Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan insisted that it might be a mental block that is forcing the Tigers to lose tight matches after admitting the fact that his team performed poorly in all three departments of the game.

Bangladesh lost yet another close encounter as Afghanistan won by one run following a magnificent piece of fielding by Shafiqullah Shafiq to stop a four off Ariful Haque's bat off the last ball of the innings at Dehradun.

Bangladesh have lost quite a few matches that could have ended in Tigers favour including the two T20I matches against India, one in the ICC World T20 in 2016 group stage that could have eliminated India from the tournament and the final of Nidahas Trophy.

Skipper Shakib said he thinks it is a mental barrier that is not letting the Tigers keep their nerve to finish off a close encounter.

"It will be hard for me to answer," Shakib said. "I have never batted or bowled in those situations. I think the batsmen or bowlers will describe it better. I think it is a mental block, which we have not been able to overcome till now."

"Throughout the series, we failed in the three departments, which is the reason for this result." Shakib answered as he was asked about what went wrong in the series.

About yesterday's game, Shakib said that the run-outs of Soumya Sarkar and Liton Das in the sixth over of the chase made the difference.

"In a game, even one run-out has a huge impact and we had two run-outs in three deliveries which was a huge setback. But I have to give credit to the way Mushfiqur [Rahim] bhai and [Mahmudullah] Riyad bhai batted. It would have felt better to win as losing the game after getting that close feels bad. As I said overall we were unable to play as a team throughout the series which naturally reflected on our results," said a dejected Shakib.