Dhaka Tribune Correspondent Minhaz Uddin Khan reports from Colombo.
Bangladesh having lost the Nidahas T20I tri-nation series final to India by four wickets in Colombo Sunday registered their fifth final defeat in a multi-nation tournament.
The Tigers till date have played five multi-nation finals – two ODI tri-series, the Asia Cup 2013 ODIs, the Asia Cup 2016 T20Is and the latest in Colombo. And this is the Tigers’ second loss lost against India in a title-decider after the Asia Cup 2016.
In 2009, Bangladesh at home lost to Sri Lanka by two wickets in a final. In the 2013 Asia Cup final, Bangladesh suffered a two-run defeat against Pakistan, also at home. In the 2016 Asia Cup final, Bangladesh lost to India by eight wickets. The Tigers tasted their fourth defeat in a final after losing the tri-series ODIs to Sri Lanka by 79 runs at home in January this year. The latest defeat came Sunday.
Shakib Al Hasan: “It was a very good game of cricket. Hopefully, some day, we’ll be on the winning side”#INDvBAN
— Cricbuzz (@cricbuzz) March 18, 2018
Bangladesh captain Shakib al Hasan did not have many words to explain yet another heart-breaking loss and said lessons must be learned from this setback.
“Don’t know if it is actually nerve or luck. Nine (12) runs in the last over is not much and most of the times you can defend five runs in one ball. But it did not happen. I will not say it is nerve – the bowlers did their job but (India) batsmen played well,” said Shakib to the media at R Premadasa Cricket Stadium Sunday.
Bangladesh had reached Colombo earlier this month with the hope of redeeming themselves from the recent lows. The job was done well, as the sensational wins over host Sri Lanka would suggest.
#Cricket at it’s best! Thrilling victory for #India with 4 wickets to spare against #Bangladesh
Both teams gave the crowd something to remember & @DineshKarthik was on fire! 🏏💥#INDvBAN#sports #NidahasTrophy2018— Namal Rajapaksa (@RajapaksaNamal) March 18, 2018
“I do not see much negatives. We won two matches and could have won another two. But we missed those narrowly. We can do a lot better if we can improve the small rooms we got. And this can be the start of a new chapter for us,” Shakib explained.
“We are scoring consistently. Some of our bowlers bowled really well and we also fielded extremely well throughout this tournament. We just needed that little bit of edge. Hopefully we can work on those things, get better and move forward,” the ace all-rounder added.
Source: Dhaka Tribune.