‘Winning a series isn’t everything’

Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza said that there was a lot to improve upon despite admitting that the 2-1 ODI series win away from home against the West Indies was a good achievement.

Bangladesh managed to make a comeback after their Test series debacle by clinching the ODI series and Mashrafe said that a win like that was necessary. ODIs remain Tigers' favourite format and the win can catapult them to future success and also boost confidence.

"If you look at the last 3-4 months, obviously a win like this was needed. It will do us good before the Asia Cup. We will have to improve a lot which I have said before as well. Winning a series isn't everything. There is a lot of room for improvement which we are missing," Mashrafe said.

Bangladesh had lost the T20 series at Dehradun to Afghanistan 3-0 and then lost the Test series to West Indies 2-0. Mashrafe reiterated that Tigers were showing improvements in certain areas.

"If you look at today's match, Rubel [Hossain] did exactly what the team needed. We are improving in certain facets like this but now we have to ensure that we do it consistently," he said.

The team needed pacer Rubel Hossain to get a breakthrough and he did just that. Chris Gayle had been in ominous form early on in the Windies innings and he was almost single handedly taking the game away from the Tigers with his big hitting after Mashrafe had removed Gayle's opening partner Evin Lewis to put some pressure on the West Indies batters. Gayle fell to Rubel, trying to hit the fast bowler over long on in the 22nd over.

"We have to talk about Rubel. He gave the breakthrough which gave an advantage to the other bowlers," he said about Rubel, who also bowled a decent seventh over, giving away just six runs.

"Overall, I think the fielding has to improve. At the same time there were things to improve in the batting and bowling departments as well," the skipper concluded.