Mahmudullah happy with result but sees room for improvement
With the T20I World Cup coming up in October this year, Bangladesh’s next task in the 20-over format of the game will come against Ireland.
Bangladesh twenty20 international (T20I) captain Mahmudullah Riyad has been pleased by his side's performances against Zimbabwe but believes that there is still room for improvement.
With the T20I World Cup coming up in October this year, Bangladesh's next task in the 20-over format of the game will come against Ireland.
"We played clinical cricket with bat and ball but we have room for improvement for sure. I expect my team to perform even better than they did. It's always a challenge to perform to your standards. Ireland is up next so we have to apply ourselves there," he said at the post-match press conference on Wednesday.
Mahmudullah has admitted that the results have not been up to the mark in recent times as Bangladesh got whitewashed by Pakistan in the last T20I series, earlier in the year.
"We knew we weren't good enough before but it was up to us to keep focus and do well," he said.
Bangladesh attained a clean sweep in all of the games they played against Zimbabwe, and it's the first time in their history, since they attained Test status in 2000, that the team have been able to achieve this feat: "It's a big achievement to win in all three formats and not lose any. We didn't have that in mind when we started. It was about taking it game by game."
Mahmudullah was happy that the team was clinical in all the games and the players maintained a level of performance required to win each game: "Complacency can creep in and an upset can happen. So we didn't allow that to happen. From being in the gym to everything, we were super focused."
He also added that winning against Zimbabwe, who are not the most top-quality opposition does not take the sheen off of the performance and the achievement: "Just because we won against Zimbabwe, shouldn't be taken lightly. Any team can beat any team on their day."
What pleased the 34-year-old a lot was the confident attitude of the team that knew it could win, something that was missing from the players during the series against Pakistan.
"I'm happy with the attitude. Last time in Pakistan we asked why we weren't doing well. We need to have the self-belief and that mental fortitude to do well," he said.
Liton Das, who was man-of-the-series in both the ODIs and the T20Is was given special praise by the captain and Mahmudullah believes he's a "world-class batsman".
"Liton is a world-class batsman in my eyes. Not just because he got runs here. But because he has a certain smoothness in his batting that not everyone can possess. Some have to work really hard for their runs but things come a lot easier for him. In this series, he kept things simple and didn't try anything too extravagant and hopefully, he continues this form forwards," Mahmudullah explained.
All was not rosy for Mahmudullah though as he was omitted from the Test side and was given a white-ball contract on Monday.
The right-handed middle-order batsman had been struggling for form in the longest format and he admitted that he didn't know for sure if he would be able to return to the Test side: "Still not sure how I can get my place back in Tests. But I'll give it my best shot."