Bangladesh Test skipper, Shakib al Hasan, after Bangladesh’s 10-wicket loss to West Indies in the second Test in St Lucia on Monday, conceded that they needed to go back to the drawing board in order to make long-term plans to do well in Test cricket.
Shakib, who was brought back into the leadership role after Mominul Haque decided to step down ahead of the tour, failed to change the fortunes of the visitors with his side being cleanly swept away by the hosts in the two-match Test series.
In the recent past, disastrous batting displays in Test cricket seemed to be the talking point of Bangladesh and it continued the same manner in the Caribbean as well. Shakib felt it was largely due to the lack of game awareness and their will to fight it out till the end.
“Game awareness is an important thing and if we take this Test into consideration, we lost wickets just before drinks break, lunch break or just before the rain was coming. And if this was not the case, the situation might have been different. These things are part of game awareness and what I feel in these two Test matches, we could not show as much character as we are capable of showing and we were not as tough as we could be,” Shakib said.
He also added that it was high time Bangladesh sat together to make plans considering they have five months before their next Test assignment. Unless they did so, he doesn’t believe things will change in the longer format. Bangladesh will host India in December to play two Tests and three ODIs that will be played in Dhaka and Chattogram.
“Look we have to improve in every department if we want to win a Test match. I think it is good that we have a long gap so I feel during this gap those who are interested in playing Tests and want to play Tests will be working individually to improve. Without improvement there is no way we can do well and there is no set of players who will do well if they are called. So if we can move forward by making a plan with the set of available players and the other three to four players who are outside I feel we can do something good. Otherwise, it is difficult to have any big change from what had happened so far. So we have to make changes in a couple of areas and to do that we have to change our mentality because that is important and we have work to do in this aspect.
“Because we have a five-month gap now, so we can sit and talk, later take a decision after thinking over it by ourselves. If we can sit and agree on any particular thing and then move forward and if we can get one to one and half year we can have a good result at least on a consistent basis. I am not saying that we have to win the Test and if you see then you will find any country touring abroad is considered to be underdogs. New Zealand are currently champions of the Test Championship but even they lost when they are playing away from home and it is the same with England, Australia and India.
What I feel is that we must make sure that we don’t lose at home; either we earn a draw or win the game and if we can do this improvement, then it will help us in away performances because we might not win at that point of time but at least will play competitive cricket which is very important and so it is very important that we plan very well when we play at home and make sure we don't lose though it sounds negative but something like that. At least we win or even if we can't win at least we end the series with a draw,” he said.