'We have ourselves to blame'

Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal has said that even though the Tigers were a bit unlucky due to the injuries in the second innings, they lost the game mainly because of their poor cricketing shots.

While Bangladesh's batsmen handled the bounce at the Basin Reserve quite well in the first innings, they were wayward in the second. In addition, the batsmen seemed to be in a hurry in the second innings, hoping to add as many runs as possible in quick time. It seemed as though the confusion in the approach eventually led to their downfall in Wellington yesterday.

“We were not unlucky. We have ourselves to blame,” Tamim told reporters after the game yesterday.

“I think in the second innings we could have batted better. We were unlucky regarding the injuries but we definitely could have batted well. We had a good partnership early and then Imrul [Kayes] got injured; that was unlucky. Mushfiqur [Rahim] and Sabbir [Rahman] were batting quite well and after Mushy got injured, we fell. It was a mixture of bad luck and bad shots,” added Tamim.

When asked if New Zealand's strategy of bowling bouncers consistently was a bit unfair, he replied in the negative. “No, that's part of the game. You can't complain about it. That was their strategy maybe and I have no complaints. I am sure Mushy doesn't have complaints. When they come to Bangladesh we know that they did not like spin. We will bowl spin all day… that's what happened, you know,” smiled Tamim.

One of the most shocking dismissals of the day was that of Shakib Al Hasan's. The batsman, who had scored 217 in the first innings, the highest ever score by a Bangladeshi batsman, was caught at mid-on trying to smack Mitchell Santner for a boundary off only the eighth ball of the day. While Tamim defended Shakib's attempt, he also admitted that it would have been better had Shakib tried to unleash himself a little later during the day.  

“We knew that if we had to survive the whole day we had to play our normal game.  We can't go overly attacking or overly defensive. If we go too defensive, that would be a problem. Shakib was a lefty batsman against a slow left-armer with the wind. If he was confident about taking him on, then that was the right shot. Because he didn't connect it well, we can say a lot of things now,” said Tamim.

When asked if that wicket had a bad effect on his teammates mentally, he replied: “As cricketers, we do talk about it… I feel that if he could have taken a bit more, it would have been good for everyone,” he said.

Bangladesh missed an experienced pace attack in this game. With Mohammad Shahid, Shafiul Islam and Mustafizur Rahman injured, this was more a back-up pace attack. Kamrul Islam Rabbi had played two Tests prior to this game, while Taskin Ahmed and Shubhashis Roy were playing their first game. It was one of the reasons New Zealand managed to post a strong reply in the second innings of the Test.

Tamim however said that he was happy with the effort of his pacers, considering that they were all really inexperienced.

At the end of the day, despite the defeat, Tamim felt that there were more positives than negatives. “The result is different, but we played really well in the first four days. Posting 500-plus runs is a huge achievement and I am sure the boys are more confident than before.

“We are disappointed as cricketers. Yes there are 10 positives, but at the end of the day we lost the game. Had we won or drawn the match, it would have been special but we lost. Now we have to identify what went wrong and work on it because we lost the game,” said Tamim.