Bangladesh National Cricket team returned home on Sunday afternoon after their poor show in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup in England and Wales.
The Tigers landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 5:18pm by an Emirates Airlines flight.
However, four players — Shakib Al Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Liton Das – did not come back for personal reasons.
Talking to reporters at the airport, Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza took all the responsibility for Bangladesh’s poor performance in their dream World Cup as they earlier eyed a semifinal berth. “As the captain, I’m taking all the responsibility. I failed to fulfill the expectations in the World Cup,” he said.
Bangladesh experienced an unexpected World Cup tour as they managed only three wins in their eight matches and the remaining match with Sri Lankan was washed out due to rain.
Shakib Al Hasan, the Test and T20 captain of Bangladesh, was the only Bangladeshi player who performed consistently in the World Cup recording seven 50-plus scores, including two centuries, to touch the milestone of Sachin Tendulkar, who did the same during the 2003 World Cup.
At the same time, he became the only third player after Sachin and Australia’s Matthew Hayden to score more than 600 runs in a single World Cup. Later, Rohit Sharma and David Warner also touched the milestone on Saturday.
Apart from proving his class with the bat, Shakib bagged 11 wickets as well, and thus, he became the only cricketer in history to achieve the double of scoring more than 500 runs and scalp more than 10 wickets.
Wicketkeeper batsman Mushfiqur Rahim, pacer Mohammad Saifuddin and Mustafizur Rahman also did well but their performances were not enough to record Bangladesh’s best World Cup experience.
Mustafizur registered back-to-back five-wicket hauls against India and Pakistan which helped him bring his wicket tally to 20. He is now the only Bangladeshi bowler to take 20 wickets in a World Cup.
If these are the most illuminated performance of Bangladeshi players in the World Cup, the appearances of captain Mashrafe, Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar were the biggest reasons behind Bangladesh’s poor display in the showpiece event.
Mashrafe bagged only a wicket conceding 361 runs in 56 overs, which is one of the worst bowling figures in the history of the World Cup. Tamim scored only 235 runs at an average of 29.37 with just one fifty while Soumya failed to hit even a fifty in eight matches. He scored 166 runs at an average of 20.75.
Star all-rounder Mahmudullah was also poor in the World Cup. Along with several injuries, he failed due to his poor batting form.
However, Bangladesh had started their World Cup assault with a win against South Africa that was the must-needed boost at the start of the event.
But Mashrafe-led Bangladesh failed to capitalise on the start as they lost five of their next seven matches while the match against Sri Lanka was washed out.
Eventually, Bangladesh’s dismal World Cup show came to the end being to be the number eight on the points table. West Indies and Afghanistan are the only two sides who were worse than Bangladesh in the World Cup.
