Cricket 'We won the series but don't think we played really well' - Tamim Iqbal

Tamim Iqbal said that his team needs to chip away at specific areas subsequent to losing their third ODI against Sri Lanka. The hosts, notwithstanding, secured the series 2-1, having won the initial two matches.

Bangladesh sneaked through the third and last match of the series, losing by 97 runs at the Shere Bangla Stadium in Dhaka on May 28. 
In the post-match presentation, he said:

"As I said at the end of the last game, we have won the series but I never felt that we played the complete game," - he said. 

"Never played to our potential. Lucky that we are on the winning side but there are many areas that we need to seriously work on. They had a very attacking mindset today, and we helped them by bowling a lot of short balls, lots of widths. When the opportunity came, we didn't take our catches. If we had taken those, could have been maybe 30 runs lesser" - he added. 

Batting first, Sri Lanka posted a solid 287 runs. Kushal Perera, who called for more intent after the second ODI, drove the group from the front with a splendid century. 

Dhananjaya de Silva likewise made an important commitment of 55 runs to help post a difficult complete that demonstrated too enormous for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh got off to a forlorn beginning in their pursuit yet Mahmudullah and Mosaddek Hossain steadied the boat with singular fifties. Dusmantha Chameera was remarkable with the ball, getting back with a five-wicket take to crash the home side with the last four players neglecting to cross single digits. 

Having lost by 97 runs, Tamim Iqbal encouraged the adolescents in the group to venture up and unite behind senior cricketers in impending games. 

"Overdependency on seniors maybe it is a concern. But I'm someone who always stands with the youngsters because I don't think they aren't trying. Just that if they start scoring, it will be better for the team" - he said.

Mushfiqur Rahim, who was named the player of the series, hit two game-dominating thumps in the initial two matches. He completed the series with 237 runs from three games including a century and a fifty.

"The boys worked really hard for the series. Last few months we haven't played our best cricket but we executed our plans well in the first two games of this series. If you play international cricket for 15 years, you need to contribute more and more" - he said

"Sri Lanka isn't an easy side to score against, they like to come hard against us, they never give up. I enjoy the responsibility, whenever there is pressure on me, I like to stay calm. It gives me the urge to do well" - he added.