Tamim Iqbal felt disappointed for not being able to clean sweep the ODI series against Afghanistan

Bangladesh’s ODI skipper Tamim Iqbal said on Monday that he is disappointed to not be able to clean sweep the series against Afghanistan while Bangladesh stands on the top of the points table of ICC Super League.

Bangladesh ODI captain Tamim Iqbal said on Monday that he is disappointed to not be able to clean sweep the series against Afghanistan following the seven-wicket defeat in the concluding game of the three-match rubber in Chattogram.

Bangladesh now stands on the top of the points table of ICC Super League but they have missed the 20 valuable points as they lost the last game against Sri Lanka and now Afghanistan after winning the opening two games both times.

“Very disappointed. Before the game, I had said that this match was probably very important. We won the series but the scenario is not such that it won’t be a problem if you lose a game. Every game has value. I am disappointed as we couldn’t play the way we did in the second match,”

Tamim told reporters.

“Losing back-to-back wickets makes it difficult,”

Tamim said.

“Three run-outs also didn’t help. If we could have managed 250, we could have probably had a better chance. Credit goes to Afghanistan. They were hungrier than us to win the last game. Rashid [Khan] bowled very well today although we played their spinners well in the first two games. [Rahmanullah] Gurbaz batted well.”

“There are two things here. If you win one or two more, you are probably qualifying for the World Cup. That’s not my target as my target is to finish in the top four. If you want to claim that you have come here to win the World Cup in 2023, if you qualify as the seventh or eighth team, it doesn’t make sense.

“I can’t point fingers at anyone in my team for being relaxed. But this was one match I wanted to win. In the first game, we were extremely lucky and played well in the second game. I thought we should finish on a high in this game. When you have this kind of opportunity, you have to take maximum advantage.”

“You don’t know about the future,”

Tamim said.

“We are playing next against South Africa and Ireland in their conditions. We are playing against England too, so there’s nothing guaranteed. You have to make sure you get maximum points from every opportunity.

Bangladesh will now be facing the tough upcoming series against South Africa, Ireland, and England with the first two assignments away from home.