Bangladesh’s preparations for the T20 World Cup hit a bump when they unexpectedly lost a series to the cricketing underdogs, the USA. Shakib Al Hasan, a seasoned player for Bangladesh, admitted they need to step up their game after losing two matches in a row.
The 37-year-old veteran praised the USA team for their strong performance, acknowledging that they outplayed Bangladesh in both games. This series loss, where the USA chased down modest targets and won the series while registering their first series win over a full-member team, is a wake-up call for them ahead of the 2024 T20 World Cup. And this defeat Should hopefully motivate Bangladesh to improve, according to Shakib, as reported by Cricbuzz.
USA Bangladesh, T20I Highlights
Ali Khan, who used to play for the Kolkata Knight Riders, became the star player for Team USA! He took three important wickets, including Shakib Al Hasan’s, from Bangladesh. This amazing bowling performance helped the Americans make history by winning their first-ever series against a Test-playing nation in T20 cricket.
Bangladesh didn’t start their preparation for the big event well. They lost two out of three T20 matches against the USA, and one match is left to play. In the second T20 match, they were doing okay while chasing 145 runs. They reached 106/4 in the 15th over but then had a big collapse. They got all out for 138 runs in 19.3 overs.
After targeting the score of 145 runs, USA scored their first ever against a Test-playing nation in the T20 arena with a lead of 2-0.
Shakib Al Hasan and wake-up call in T20I Cricket
Expressing his concern and disappointment over the defeat of the USA in their T20I ahead of the main T20 World Cup he said that-
"Certainly it is disappointing and we didn't expect it but we must give credit to the US team for the way they have played. I think no one expected that we would lose two games. Any match you lose as a team is disappointing and you don't want to lose a game and obviously, it is very disappointing. But having said that we have to play the World Cup and this series might be a wake-up call for us as we haven't played the way we want to play."
Questions upon being asked if they took the USA team lightly and considered them as a small team may have impacted their preparations and game ahead of the loss, he said that I don’t think we took them lightly, it was the poor execution of our plans and we could not perform and do what we had planned for the matches.
