A depleted Bangladesh cricket team returned home from New Zealand on Sunday morning after a disastrous tour where they lost all their six matches against the Black Caps.
The tour consisted of three one-day internationals as part of the 2023 World Cup qualification campaign and three Twenty20 matches where some of the key Kiwi players did not take part but yet the Tigers failed to register a single win.
With the clean sweep, Bangladesh’s winless run in New Zealand continued as out of 32 matches played between the two teams, Tigers have failed to secure a single victory in any of the formats.
Nasum Ahmed, who made his international during this tour, uttered some weird reasons for the failure of the Bangladesh team when he spoke to the media after the team’s arrival.
‘If we could stay there for one and half months to two months, I think our fielding could improve. The sky in New Zealand is much clearer than here [Bangladesh] and the weather is not like ours,’ the left-arm spinner told the media at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
‘We needed a little more time. If we could have trained there for 15 days or more, I think the result could be better.’
Nasum, who went on his first away tour, also found the wickets of New Zealand were far different from the surfaces on what he is used to play in Bangladesh.
‘I think we are a bit lacking behind in terms of wickets. The wickets in our country and the wickets there are very different. But as we are professional cricketers, we have to adjust to every condition .We tried, and the rest….’ said Nasum.
The 27 years old left-arm spinner from Sylhet also felt that the team failed collectively,
`About failure…to tell the truth we could not do anything. We played badly or we could not do our jobs properly…that’s it. What more I can say?’ said Nasum.
The Bangladesh team stayed more than a month in New Zealand which included the mandatory quarantine period but Nasum still thinks that staying a little longer could change the scenario of the results.
‘Preparations were good, actually we needed a little more time to adapt to the conditions. I think they [New Zealand] will also feel the same problems of adapting to the conditions when they come to play here’, he added.
Tigers will be enjoying a holiday at home before starting to prepare for their scheduled tour of Sri Lanka but it was not the case for left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman as he did not came out of the airport considering he left for India few hours later to join Rajasthan Royals in the IPL.
Head coach Rusell Domingo and fielding coach Ryan Cook did not return with the team as they went for a vacation to South Africa and are expected to arrive on April 8 or 9.
Bowling coach Ottis Gibson and batting coach Jonathan Lewis, however, accompanied the team to Dhaka. -new age
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