Big relief for each of our players to have those two back: Mashrafe

Bangladesh ODI captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza was in a positive mood while speaking to the press ahead of Bangladesh's first ODI against the West Indies. One can ofcourse correlate Mashrafe's positve mood to the return of the Tigers' two biggest performers back into the ODI side. Shakib Al Hasan had already played in Tests while Tamim scored a brilliant ton in the practice game at BKSP.

Mashrafe revealed that it is a big relief for each and every member in the Bangladesh outfit to have those two back. "Obviously Shakib and Tamim being in the team is a big advantage. The fact that Tamim played the practice match and made runs is a big relief for us and him as well," Mashrafe said.

It is not too hard to fathom why that would be the case as the duo were Bangladesh's best performer during the series against the Windies at the Caribbean as Tigers recovered from a disappointing Test series to clinch the ODI and the T20 series. Bangladesh team rely heavily on those two stalwarts and Mashrafe reiterated that coming back from injury is always hard and in Tamim's case the team cannot expect him to hit top gear straight away. The duo were injured during the Asia Cup and the Tigers sorely missed their presence especially since they missed out on the advantage of being able to build their innings around Tamim, who has had played the anchor role to perfection before his injury.

"It takes time to perform after returning from injury so just because Tamim scored a hundred in the last match, we cannot expect him to be extraordinary in the next match as well. He could play better than he did or he may not. It takes some time to adjust yourself after returning from an injury," Mahsrafe gave a fair warning.

"Tamim was out for two to two-and-a-half months. Shakib might have made some adjustments after playing two Test matches. But Tamim might take some time to adjust himself, at least that is my feeling.

"But it's a big relief for each of our players to have those two back," he concluded.