Mahmudullah also ‘looking for answers’

A dejected Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah Riyad walked into the press conference area after competing in a disastrous ICC T20 World Cup campaign, in which the Tigers went on to lose all the five Super 12 games after their crushing eight-wicket defeat to Australia in Dubai yesterday.

There was no outrage or tendency to blame the surroundings; rather Mahmudullah opted to play on the backfoot while facing the barrage of bouncers from the media over their dreadful display in the marquee event.

The first question that Mahmudullah faced was whether he is considering stepping down from the T20I captaincy following Tigers' abysmal campaign, to which Bangladesh skipper had replied, "Well the decision will depend on the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). From my point of view, I have always tried to hold the team together but probably there was some lacking on my captaincy to bring out the performance from the players."

 Apart from a few individual heroics, there was no significant performance as a unit from Bangladesh throughout the flagship event. The question was there on what are the reasons behind the poor show from the team, and quite interestingly, Mahmudullah has been searching for the answers himself.

 "Especially in the two games against Sri Lanka and West Indies, our performance throughout the tournament was poor. Even I was looking for the answers on what went wrong and what was missing. We sat together, talked to each other and tried to find out the reasons for not being able to perform," said Mahmudullah.

 The 35-year-old was also reminded of his decision to retire from Test cricket in the middle of the Zimbabwe Test earlier this year and the question was whether Mahmudullah would be inclined to retire from T20Is. Mahmudullah, with a smile on his face, replied: "At the moment I am not thinking about this."

 The Tigers' captain pointed out that batting has remained one of the biggest reasons behind the downfall in the tournament, where the Tigers were bundled out for 84 and 73 against South Africa and Australia, respectively.

 But interestingly, Mahmudullah backed the decision of exploiting the home conditions to win series against Australia and New Zealand, saying that the Tigers needed the winning momentum before heading to the World Cup.

 "I would still repeat that those wins were important before coming into this tournament. We are such a team where the momentum is very important and the fact is that we didn't get the flow initially in the tournament and so we struggled throughout the tournament," he added.

 Mahmudullah informed that there is no gap between the board and the players despite the fact that the BCB president Nazmul Hassan lashed out at the team followed by the defeat against Scotland in the qualifying stage.

 "I think I got a bit emotional after the game against Oman and it was an outburst of my frustration," said Mahmudullah as he went on to add that the bio-bubble fatigue has also played an adverse effect on the players'  mental state.