Shakib blames failure on lack of application

“I don’t know what happened,” was his first reply before settling for that most common reason – lack of application.

“When Shahadat and Ashraful were batting well, we relaxed slightly. In fact, we were laughing in the dressing room, we were not even thinking of the game. But later we could not tackle those 15 balls from Zaheer when he changed everything. But yes, we did not apply ourselves today,” Shakib said on Wednesday.

His answer, in fact, helped only to throw the cat among pigeons as some scribes raised the query – how an international team cannot think of cricket when the game was on in the middle?

Shakib did not have a definite answer for it, but offered with a shrug, “The coach was telling us to concentrate, there always was a message from the coach. But I think we could not cope with Zaheer’s reverse swing and also we did not apply ourselves.”

When the all-rounder came out to bat, he seemed to be in a hurry to finish everything in just one stroke. The Bangladesh skipper started off with a first-ball six off Pragyan Ojha before playing wild sweep to give a simple catch to Gautam Gambhir. 

Shakib went on to explain, “When I came out to bat, my plan was to bat long. The ball was in my slot so I went for the shot, but unfortunately I mistimed it.”

On Zaheer Khan’s bowling, Shakib said, “Zaheer is a different bowler in Tests and one-dayers and he is more difficult to face in Tests. He pitches the new ball in the right areas while he can get the old ball to reverse swing.”