World Cup dreams diminished but did Bangladesh not see it coming?

After broadcaster Athar Ali Khan picked Bangladesh as one of his four World Cup semi-finalists while commentating on the Bangladesh-Afghanistan game, his fellow commentator Russell Arnold exclaimed, "What are we without dreams? Dreams are free." 

Exactly three weeks later, Bangladesh's dreams are all but over after losing five out of their first six matches as the first team and their skipper Shakib Al Hasan went on to admit that this has been the Asian team's worst World Cup campaign in recent memory.

After Bangladesh's shocking loss against the Netherlands, Shakib Al Hasan reiterated that Bangladesh are a better team than what their performance suggests. Are they?

Before Bangladesh's World Cup opener against Afghanistan, head coach Chandika Hathurusingha said Bangladesh were eyeing a semi-final spot. Before and after that, many cricketers, coaches and administrators stated with confidence that Bangladesh had the steel in them to make the top four.

Well, they had results to back their claim. Bangladesh finished third in the ICC ODI World Cup Super League with 15 wins out of 24 matches. Only New Zealand had more wins than the Tigers in the cycle and fans back home expected Bangladesh to emulate that success in the World Cup as ODI is a format where they excel and the conditions in India are not too dissimilar. 

"I think we have prepared well. If you talk about the last four years, since the 2019 World Cup, we are probably the third or fourth team in the qualifiers points system. We have done really well as a group," Shakib said at the captains' meet just before the tournament. 

But in reality, those wins in the Super League came mostly against lower-ranked teams. Their biggest success in that cycle was the away series win over South Africa. They won series against the likes of the West Indies, Zimbabwe and Ireland who could not qualify for the World Cup and Sri Lanka and Afghanistan who are ranked lower. 

They played nine Super-League ODIs against higher-ranked teams in the cycle and won just three. They were whitewashed by New Zealand and lost 2-1 to England at home. Although they won a non-Super League series against India last year, Bangladesh lost series to Zimbabwe (2022) and Afghanistan (2023) as well. Notably, both the wins over India came in Mirpur turners and they were absolutely blown away in batting-friendly Chattogram. 

Shakib had no option but to admit on Saturday that they did not face tough competition in the Super League. On being asked if the confidence that Bangladesh gained by winning those matches in the Super League was "fake" or not, he said, "Wins give you confidence, wherever you get them. But we probably didn't face many tough challenges going into the World Cup."

After the end of the Super League, Bangladesh participated in the Asia Cup which was looked at as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup. The pitches in Pakistan assisted the batters while those in Sri Lanka were slow and low. So teams experienced a bit of both in the tournament. 

It was another disappointing tournament for them as they couldn't make the finals and most importantly, they couldn't bat a full 50 overs in three out of five matches in the Asia Cup. But in a sensational interview with T-Sports, Shakib said that they didn't do too badly there and had one result gone their way, things would have looked different. 

But on Saturday, Shakib contradicted his previous statement, saying, "If you keep aside the India match [where both teams played depleted teams], we underperformed in the Asia Cup."

The Bangladesh captain, who generally is very confident while answering questions in press conferences, looked a resigned, ageing man who didn't disagree with any of the opinions and queries made by a host of Indian and Bangladeshi reporters at the Eden Gardens.

Much has been talked and written about Shakib's differences with long-time friend and teammate Tamim Iqbal since the latter's World Cup omission. The whole drama and Shakib's bombshell claims about Tamim in that interview affected the team, opined former captain Mohammad Ashraful while speaking to Hindustan Times after Bangladesh's match against India. 

Shakib finally admitted on Saturday that the issue could have influenced the team negatively. 

Their batting never blossomed in the tournament with all the batters getting out in a predictable manner. Against the Netherlands, Shakib fell to a short ball for the fourth time in the tournament, Tanzid Hasan for the second time. Litton Das tried to do something out of the box after his go-to scoring option was blocked. Mushfiqur Rahim's weakness against the ball that comes back in got exposed again.

In fact, Bangladesh's top four average only 21.3 in the World Cup, the second-lowest so far in the tournament and their scoring rate of 4.63 runs per over has been by far the lowest by any team. Experts in and outside the country have time and again suggested that Bangladesh should play on better pitches back home but it never quite happened or happened too late.

The floating batting order in the World Cup came under the scanner but Shakib said that "limitations" of players led to this move.

"We have many limitations. We are not comfortable playing some specific types of bowlers or bowling in specific phases or batting in specific positions. I personally prefer to give batters fixed roles. As I said earlier, if our top-order had batted well, all this would not have happened," he said.

Did Bangladesh not know about the "limitations" before the World Cup? Shakib, in that pre-World Cup interview, said that apart from a middle-over enforcer in Ebadot Hossain, Bangladesh didn't have any weakness. In a space of three weeks, the Bangladesh skipper had to change his statement again.

Bangladesh's target right now has been reduced to ensuring a top-eight finish and seal a spot in the 2025 Champions Trophy, a tournament Shakib said would be his last in international cricket. They only have three matches left and given the form of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia, it's quite difficult to expect that Bangladesh can script a comeback. 

When asked about the reason behind Bangladesh's failure in the World Cup in the post-match press conference on Saturday, Shakib did not have any answer. But given the team's limitations, lack of tough challenge in the Super League and a disappointing Asia Cup, did he and Bangladesh really not see it coming?