Veteran Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has said that the shocking series loss to the USA is a reminder of how much they need to work on their game ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024. The veteran also credited the USA for outplaying them two games in a row. However, the USA side beat Bangladesh in the second T20I on Thursday to register the biggest series win in their cricketing history as well. They chased down 154 in the opening T20I and defended a modest 144 to defeat the Tigers.

Speaking after the second T20I, Shakib said as quoted by Cricbuzz:  “Certainly it is disappointing and we didn’t expect it but we must give credit to the US team for the way they have played. I think no one expected that we will lose two games. Any match you lose as a team is disappointing and you don’t want to lose a game and obviously it is very disappointing. But having said that we have to play the World Cup and this series might be a wake-up call for us as we haven’t played the way we want to play.”

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“I don’t think we took them lightly. In the first game maybe we couldn’t do what we wanted to do and in the second game exactly the same thing happened – we couldn’t execute the plans that we were supposed to do on the ground,” he further added.

However, Bangladesh batters were not in form as only Towhid Hridoy managed a half-century across both games. He scored 58 in the first
T20I at a strike rate of just 123.4 as well.

“If we take this as a preparation series for the World Cup, in that case we should have a lot more batting and bowling sessions and there should have been more facilities that we didn’t get at all. I feel we had a proper net session for one day and even on that day the batsmen could not had required the batting session. And there was an optional day and the batsmen did not seize the opportunity,” Shakib Al Hasan concluded.