Broom, boos greet returning Tigers

After being humbled in the only Test and then losing the ODI series to an invigorated Zimbabwe side, the Tigers were given a welcome they would want to forget when a group of 25-30 young followers showed up in front of the VIP gate at Shah Jalal International Airport with garlands made of tattered slippers and brooms to demonstrate their disappointment when the team arrived early Wednesday.

While they were demonstrating outside, on the other side of the gate skipper Shakib Al Hasan had to go through may be one of the most tough times in his cricketing career as he faced the media at the lounge who had one common question, “Why this humiliating defeat?”

“I think the three-month break that we had made all the difference. It doesn’t matter how much we practiced, we were all out of competitive matches. The practice matches that we had weren’t enough. Besides this, if anyone had any personal problem, I’m unaware of it,” said Shakib.

“The players took their time to catch the drift and the proof could be noticed by the end of the series. Simple reason is that we had problems adjusting to the condition at the beginning of the tour,” Shakib confessed.

Doesn’t matter how many questions he was asked, nearly every answer had a common sentence, ‘we lacked practice’.

When asked whether he had any complaints with the international calendar which has so far lacked Test matches and if it was reason for the defeat, the skipper said, “I think there can be many reasons stated if anybody wants. I will just say that there are rooms for further improvement. It indeed was a big problem to play a Test match after a long interval but more than this I think things would have been much easier for us had we played some international matches instead of the three-month break that we had.”

Before the squad left for a tour that turned into a nightmare, Shakib claimed to be the favourites but unexpectedly the picture turned ugly. “I thought that we were the favourites but it was them who played better cricket. We didn’t lose any match for last five years against Zimbabwe for which in general sense we were the favourites,” said Shakib who was still to confirm the date of his departure to join Indian Premiere League team Kolkata Knight Riders for the Champions League play offs.Source: www.daily-sun.com

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