'Faulty decision making'

Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza bemoaned his batsmen's decision making following his side's 31-run defeat against South Africa at Mirpur yesterday.

While he appreciated the opening partnership between Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar, he was disappointed to see his batsmen not form partnerships.

"Overall I think that there was a bit of a doubt in the decision making and that's pretty much it. I am talking about shot selection," said Mashrafe.

"Had we batted for a bit longer and gone into the last five overs with a good batting depth then even scoring 60 runs would have been possible," said Mashrafe at the post-match press conference.

For the second consecutive match, Bangladesh's batsmen fell prey to South Africa's spinners. While the visitors' spinners did bowl well, Mashrafe reckoned that his batters could have done a lot better.

"It's difficult to explain," said Mashrafe, when asked about the reason behind his batsmen's fall against the spinners.

"Maybe there was a bit of a turn or maybe they lost their confidence. They probably got under pressure after a wicket had fallen. But on the whole I think we need to be a bit more cool on the ground.

"They will obviously come hard at us. I still don't think we have gone too far behind. We have a chance to prove ourselves in the coming matches. If we can play as a unit and maintain our confidence levels we can comeback," hoped the skipper.

The series defeat, according to the captain, is a sign that they have a lot of work to do ahead of the World Cup in India next year.

"We are very disappointed. I think this is a good lesson for us with the World Cup coming ahead. We have to work on our skills in T20s after the Australia series. We will need to practise ahead of the World Cup. We need to work on some areas seriously," said Mashrafe.

"T20 is such a game that you can only improve by practising. A player like Mushfiqur [Rahim] for example played around 40 matches, but if you ask him he will tell you that he sees every game as a new match because we don't get to play too many T20s.

"But then again that's not an excuse. As professionals, when we get to the field we have to adjust to any format," added the disappointed captain.