Tigers undone by the losing 'virus'

There was one stage of the match yesterday that perfectly summed up Bangladesh's tour of South Africa. After five overs of the chase Bangladesh were 33 for three, and on the digital scoreboard at Senwes Park one number stood out -- the Duckworth-Lewis par score was 88. That has been the gap between where Bangladesh would have liked to be and where they actually wound up repeatedly during this month-long tour. The 83-run defeat in the second T20I yesterday was a fitting end to a tour with very little in the way of positives to talk about.

There have been three captains in charge of the three formats that Bangladesh were whitewashed in on this tour, but it fell to T20I skipper Shakib Al Hasan to reflect on the tour as a whole and he homed in on a lack of mental fitness for the results on this tour.

"It is a little normal that results like this will happen on overseas tours," said Shakib when asked if, like ODI skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza had said a week earlier, he thought the outcome was alarming. "Maybe it was expected we would lose, but we did not expect to lose the way we did. We know what our ability is, but nobody could perform up to that.

"If the team does not win, it does not matter who did what," Shakib responded to a question about positives from this tour. "As this is a team game, everyone tries to win for the team. It was a tough time, we have a break from international cricket now, so the effort will be to work hard and improve our mental fitness, which I think is more important to attain than physical fitness. Physical is important of course, but if we can overcome the mental block then we can move forward."

As far as yesterday's match was concerned, Shakib paid tribute to David Miller's fastest T20I hundred, which he reached in 35 balls.

"After the first T20 we thought there was a chance of a comeback," said Shakib. "The way we started today, we thought we had a good chance but the way [David] Miller batted we did not have any answer on the field really.

"We do not have the mental strength yet to chase down totals in excess of 200 or 220," said Shakib, implying the team may have mentally checked out after conceding 224 for four, the highest total against Bangladesh in the format.

In terms of results it was the most one-sided tour the team have been on since they last visited South Africa in 2008.

"If we perform well against Sri Lanka at home then you will say that we are on the right track or we are a good team," said Shakib when asked if this is a step back for Bangladesh cricket. "I am not saying that we should have won the series, but at least we could have competed. The conditions were not that tough. We got batting wickets here. When we went to New Zealand, we competed. But here, we did not compete in any match. And that's the frustrating thing."

Such was the state of the team that Shakib compared the atmosphere in the dressing room to a virus.

"It's like a virus. If we did well in Tests, then we could have done even better in ODIs, and even better thereafter in T20Is. That's how these things work; the mentality is different in a winning dressing room; everyone talks about winning. In a losing dressing room, people talk about personal things, and unwittingly negative things come in."