Tigers gauging their expectations

The Bangladesh T20 team departed for UAE yesterday with hopes of getting their bearings in the shortest form in order in the Asia Cup. Only Anamul Haque Bijoy and pacer Taskin Ahmed did not travel with the squad due to their visas not arriving on time and are expected to travel today.

Termed as a 'new beginning' by the Bangladesh Cricket Board, questions have been raised about what the Tigers could realistically expect to achieve in the upcoming six-team tournament. That question was also pitched to newly-appointed T20I skipper Shakib Al Hasan, when he was queried about expectations going into the Asia Cup and whether the team had a realistic chance of making the final.

"It will be difficult for us [to play final]. If we think realistically, it would be an achievement to play well in these two matches and improve our performances from the last few series that we played in the past year-and-a-half," Shakib had replied in a press conference on August 22.

Continuous failures in T20Is led to the BCB shuffling the squad for the recent Zimbabwe series and trying out new players. However, after failing to embody the approach that the BCB were looking for and a resulting 2-1 loss in that series, the board decided to bring Sridharan Sriram, a coach with international and IPL experience, to take the reins of the T20 side. At the same time, Russell Domingo was relieved of his duties in the shortest format and told to focus on ODI and Tests.

Shakib admitted that failures and talk of new beginnings were not new, which at least shows that the all-rounder was ready to accept those shortcomings. "There is no way to not address the failures. It's only a question of whether we are hearing this talk of new beginnings for the last time. We might hear again that we are trying to start things anew. I don't whether there is any end to these new beginnings. But if we don't try, we will never know. So, it's important to try," he had added.

However, Bangladesh have often come out firing with their backs to the wall. The Tigers have made the Asia Cup final thrice and took the final against India in 2018 till the final ball of the 50-over game. The Tigers also had to play that final without Shakib as he injured his finger during a match against Pakistan. This time the team will be hoping their captain and ace all-rounder turns up with vital performances to inspire the side.

Bangladesh have been placed in a group with strong T20 outfits Sri Lanka and Afghanistan and both sides are in better form than the Tigers.

The Tigers can still hope to make headway in the tournament if Shakib can deliver like he did against Sri Lanka, scoring 92 off 69 with the Tigers needing to win with bonus points in a tri-nation series at home to make the final. Or if he performs the way he did when striking a ton in 2017 against the Lankans to mark the special occasion of Tigers' 100th Test. Or like when he took the 2019 World Cup by storm.

"It's not that I will have to make changes. I don't think we don't need to change. It is important how we utilise our resources to get the best return on investment, I am only thinking about that," Shakib had said.

As far as expectations go, the team management will be hoping the skipper can make the best use of 'resources' available to him.