Hopeful of better wickets at home in the future: Taskin Ahmed

Coming into the T20 World Cup, Bangladesh were red-hot form, having demolished Australia and New Zealand in familiar conditions at home. However, that set to be their own downfall with the wickets in the Middle East being contrasting to the ones that they played at home. 

While Bangladesh seemingly eased past the first round of the T20 World Cup in Oman, the Super 12 stage came as a setback to them. The Tigers were on the receiving end of four crushing loss, which has now eliminated them from the tournament. 

In response to their elimination, Bangladesh pacer Taskin Ahmed stated that he is hopeful of better sporting wickets at home, which would help the team prepare better for global tournaments. 

"We encountered sporting wickets in the World Cup, much different from Mirpur. We are hopeful of better wickets in the future. It will improve our bowling and batting. Regardless of the result, it will help us ahead of big tournaments," Taskin told reporters, reported Cricbuzz.

"Our batting unit probably is low in confidence. At the end of the day, runs are a factor in T20s. We didn't have regular big totals," Taskin told reporters on Tuesday.

On the loss against South Africa, the pacer revealed that it could have been a different story had the Asian side made a total of 120. Even though 84 became a tough task for South Africa, it wasn’t enough to take the Tigers home.

"It could have been a different story if we made even 120 or 125. I think today's wicket was different. The ball was seaming. There was off-the-pitch movement in both innings. They took nearly 14 overs to score 85 runs.”

The pacer also insisted that the team did not play to their potential in the Middle East and added that they could have bettered their performance.

"It's not that we don't have the skill (to do well in T20) but it's just not happening somehow. We haven't played according to our potential. We are better than this. We lost games that we were supposed to win. Maybe we are not as good as other T20 sides, but even then we didn't play up to our potential. I think we could have played better than this.

"Losing is not fun. Nobody wants to lose. We had great expectations, but we couldn't play up to those expectations. All the criticism is quite natural. We have to accept it. But we have to get over it before the next match, or the next series," he concluded.