Bangladesh finally managed a win in their three-match Twenty20 International series against USA as they beat the hosts by聽10聽wickets in the third match in Houston, Texas聽on聽Saturday.
This聽brought an end to their preparation for the forthcoming T20 World Cup in West Indies and USA, which will begin on June 1, and the Tigers will probably breathe a sigh of relief as what they hoped to be a confidence-boosting聽series,聽ended up being a nightmare for them.
The first two games saw Bangladesh鈥檚 batting capitulate as they managed only 153 in the first game and then failed to chase down 145 in the second game.
While their opening pair of Tanzid Hasan Tamim and Soumya Sarkar managed to bring them a 10-wicket win in the third game, chasing down 105 in just 11.4 overs, that would be of little comfort as the Americans were without several of their key players 鈥� skipper Monank Patel, all-rounder Steven Taylor, Ali Khan, and Harmeet Singh.
Bangladesh can take some positives out聽from this game, sure, as Mustafizur Rahman became the first Bangladeshi bowler to pick up a six-wicket haul in T20Is, while Rishad Hossain continued聽on聽his聽good聽displays.
However, their biggest concern for a long time now 鈥� their batting 鈥� did not show any signs of improvement in the series, despite the opening pair producing a 108-run stand, which included Tanzid Hasan Tamim hitting his third T20I fifty in seven matches.
The batting was not impressive in the five-match series they played against Zimbabwe at home before leaving for USA聽either聽as聽they scraped just four wins before losing the final one.聽However, at that point, the team stayed in denial about their troubles, and those聽were exposed聽in Houston.
Tanzid, after the third game, said that while they failed to implement their plans, they needed to have some negative aspects during their preparation for the World Cup.
鈥榃e are going through a preparation phase ahead of the World Cup.聽To me,聽it鈥檚 good to have both wins and losses while preparing.聽We have had聽both聽positive and negative results, which will help us in the future,鈥� the opener said after the third game.
鈥楨veryone was distraught [after the two defeats]. We discussed why we weren鈥檛 able to implement our plans. We tried to stay calm.鈥�
Bangladesh will now shift their focus to their official warm-up games for the T20 World Cup, where they will face USA on Tuesday before taking on India on June 1.
However,聽what they will need is聽their batting order to perform once the World Cup officially begins聽or聽else, the nightmare they have gone through in their last series before the tournament will come back to haunt them even further.