England white-ball coach Matthew Mott said Tuesday that his side’s defeat in the third T20 against Bangladesh to lose the series 3-0 was painful and an “eye-opener” ahead of the 50-over World Cup.
“We really wanted to finish well here. It’s been a fantastic tour in terms of what we’ve been up against, a very strong home team. I thought we were on today,” Mott said in Dhaka.
“The lead-in was good, everyone was up and about. But for whatever reason, we just couldn’t get clean hands with the ball, either in the air or on the ground,” he said.
“That one hurts today,” he said. “Obviously we’ve come over here to do well.
“To finish the way we did today will leave a bit of a sour taste in our mouths but it also should act as an eye-opener for us on where we need to improve,” Mott said.
The ODI World Cup in India later this year is likely to see England’s white-ball unit have to perform on similarly low-bounce wickets as in Bangladesh if it is to retain the title.
Having lost the preceding ODI series 2-1, a clinical Bangladesh won the first T20 by six wickets, the second by four wickets and the last by 16 runs in front of a raucous home crowd.
It was Bangladesh’s first series win over England in any format, and captain Shakib Al Hasan said his side “didn’t dream” that such a result was possible.
“We didn’t put ourselves under pressure before the series. We didn’t talk about winning games but just wanted to play good cricket,” Shakib said.
“I don’t like to compare between series. Winning every match is important but the way we won this series, we haven’t played like this before.”
He added that Bangladesh started playing well during the T20 World Cup last November in Australia and haven’t looked back since.
“We were unfortunate not to reach the semifinals of the T20 World Cup. We were one win away from that achievement.
“We had a lot of doubt before the tournament, but the belief that we can compete with bigger teams started from the World Cup,” he said.
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