Shawdesh Desk:

World Cup campaign in England. While the Bangladesh cricket team started off with an impressive win over South Africa, their somewhat anti-climactic exit from the tournament leaves in its wake a sea of broken hearts and a few scratching heads. While the Tigers showed impressive skills on the pitch when it came to batting–owing mostly to batsman extraordinaire Shakib al Hassan–the team’s performance in other areas left a lot to be desired. It only goes to show that relying on a few individual players, however talented, is an unsustainable strategy when it comes to the world of sports at large. Having said that, there is still plenty of reason to remain hopeful for future victories. If anything, this tournament proved that the Tigers are indeed a formidable team capable of making even giants such as the Indian cricket team sweat–the meager victory that the Indian side eked out against the Tigers in Edgbaston is clear testament to that fact. Needless to say, the Tigers will never roll over, and the team will only get better from here on in.

The need of the hour is for our cricket team to give more players a chance, nurture their skills to the heights of the likes of Shakib and Mushfiq. We may have a team ready for the World Cup, but we will not have a truly World Cup-ready team until we have all the bases covered. Few things unite all Bangladeshis the way our national cricket team does, and we congratulate, and thank the Tigers for thrilling us these past few weeks.