Atmosphere in the dressing room will be better after this win: Shakib

Bangladesh's ace allrounder Shakib Al Hasan said his team will be much more relieved after defeating Oman in their second match of the T20 World Cup. Bangladesh lost their opening match against Scotland and had to win this game to keep themselves alive in the tournament. Oman tried their best but Bangladesh eventually ended up winning the game by 27 runs.

Opting to bat, Mohammad Naim (50-ball 64) and Shakib (29-ball 42) added 80 runs for the third wicket and were the only two Bangladesh batters who looked solid. It was only because of them Bangladesh managed to put up a competitive total of 153. In reply, Mustafizur Rahman and Shakib shared seven wickets between them but it was Mohammad Saifuddin (1/16) and Mahedi Hasan (1/14) who brought them back in the game after Oman scored 47 runs in the powerplay.

"I think the bowling of Saifuddin and Mahedi was the turning point as they probably had given less than 30 runs to bring us back in the game. I think the win is certainly relieving and I feel the atmosphere in the dressing room will be better after this win," said Shakib, who was named Player of the Match for his all-round performance. 

"I think the loss against Scotland was disappointing and we must credit them while even today we had to work hard to earn the win against Oman. Look, we must credit the associate countries as they play despite all the hurdles and they are playing good cricket so I feel they deserve all the credit. In the T20 format there is no favourite as everyone has to play well and as this is a short format only one or two players can change the momentum or have a huge impact behind a win."

However, Shakib feels that Bangladesh can still do a lot better in the batting department. "There is room for improvement in the batting as we have scored 150 runs and we can add 20 to 25 runs to it. If we can add 15 runs in the power play and 10 runs at the end it can be done and we are capable of it. If we can score 170 runs with the bowling attack we can fight against any team and we need this improvement.”

Despite the win, Bangladesh (+0.500) are still behind Oman (+0.613) on the points table and will have to win their last game against PNG with a good margin if they want to make it through to the Super 12 stage. At the same time, they would also hope that Oman lose to Scotland. 

“I feel if we can beat PNG we will be through and after that we can say what we want to do next but first we have to qualify. When we left the country we dreamt of achieving something big and we still hold on to that dream. If we had said that we have come here to lose every match would you have taken that well? Dreams cannot be changed every now and then."