Mashrafe calls for team effort

Tamim Iqbal will reach Dhaka today, and Mustafizur Rahman will start off from South Africa tomorrow along with skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza. Bangladesh will be without their best ODI batsman and their best limited-overs bowler for the remainder of what has been an ill-fated tour, and they will try to draw a measure of consolation from today's third and last ODI at Buffalo Park in East London.

With defeats by 333 runs, an innings and 254 runs, 10 wickets and 104 runs so far, any expectation of a turnaround at this point in the tour seems like wishful thinking. Mashrafe however was still hopeful, asking his team to develop tunnel vision and see this match in isolation.

"It is still possible but if we go about our job the way we played the last two matches, things become harder. I believe our team has the ability to play better cricket," said Mashrafe during the pre-match press briefing yesterday. "It is a big blow to lose your top batsman and top bowler, especially in South Africa. They are our best players but that is not an excuse. There were other things that held us back. There are still three matches left and we have to focus on them on a match-by-match basis. We are all playing for the country. In the wider picture we have lost the series but we still have a chance to do well on this tour, which will help us in future overseas tours."

At this point in the tour there is nothing more for the same captain to say; assuming he will speak again after tomorrow's match, it was his penultimate official press conference on tour before Shakib Al Hasan takes over to try and explain the shambles that has been Bangladesh's tour of South Africa.

"At this point, it seems very difficult," Mashrafe said. "If we bowl, two early wickets can boost a team or two partnerships [if we bat] can be a boost.

He repeated his mantra of a concerted effort, which he had prescribed before the series. However, before the series he urged batsmen to convert starts into big innings; yesterday he seemed to have given up hope.

"There have been individual performances, but we have not been performing as a team. Whenever we have won, everyone contributed." When reminded that apart from Mushfiqur's century in the first ODI there really have not been many individual performances of note, Mashrafe said: "Yes, I will say that there haven't been big individual performances, but we have won matches with someone scoring fifty because someone else had scored 40 and another one had scored another 50. Here Mushfiqur has done it twice, Imrul has scored a fifty but if two others could do something similar... or if two other bowlers apart from Shakib and Rubel had provided a couple of breakthroughs -- I am talking about that." 

As far as team selection goes, Mashrafe admitted that Tamim and Mustafizur's absence put them in a pickle. "It is tough to make the best team selection when you have two of your best players missing. You have to give the rest a lot of confidence. When the team doesn't do well, there's a lot of all-round pressure, apart from a players' own expectations. But these things are quite normal these days. If they take it match by match, it will help them. It is also important to forget about what is being said, and focus on the cricket."