At the post-match presentation on Monday, Taskin Ahmed told Simon Doull that he asks Bangladesh bowling coach Allan Donald to help him become a world-class bowler. Later, at his press conference, Taskin said Bangladesh's fast-bowling unit dreams of becoming world-class. A couple of years ago, when Ottis Gibson, Donald's predecessor as fast-bowling coach, joined the team, Taskin told him: make me a world-class bowler. But this is not the only thing Taskin talks about.
Taskin also keeps mentioning the word "improvement", and believes the team needs to go through a process of improvement in order to do well in the T20 World Cup. His career-best figures of 4 for 25 against Netherlands helped Bangladesh to their first-ever win in the Super 12s stage of the competition, the perfect tonic for a side that has been quite ordinary in T20Is this year. Many fans dreaded that Bangladesh would go through a repeat of last year's debacle in the UAE, where they lost all five of their Super 12s games.
Against Netherlands, Taskin, Hasan Mahmud, Mustafizur Rahman and Soumya Sarkar combined to take 7 for 89 in 15 overs. While Taskin was the standout, the others did their bit too. Mahmud bowled with economy and purpose to finish with 2 for 15, while Mustafizur, under fire for his poor recent form, conceded just 20 in his four overs. Soumya, meanwhile, took the final wicket with the final ball of the match.
"Everyone is improving in the fast bowling unit," Taskin said. "We dream of becoming a world-class bowling unit. We are positive about it, the process is working well. Conditions differ in every game, so we have to adjust to it. There will be days when I will get wickets, then there will be days when I don't get wickets. I might leak more runs. Or sometimes I will win the game for the team.
"It is hard to predict performances, but we all have the hunger to improve, so that's the most positive thing. Despite so much talk around, our team unity is intact. We are helping each other. I myself want to improve more. I have a lot of room to get better as a cricketer. I want to swing the ball both ways, contribute towards the team's win, these are my targets. I want to take two steps upwards. I want everyone to rate us highly, and that'll only come if we keep improving."
Taskin bowled with the fire and bluster of an enforcer. He set the tone by dismissing Vikramjit Singh and Bas de Leede off the first two balls of Netherlands' innings, both batters poking at and nicking fast, outgoing deliveries.
"We have figured out that the new ball swings more in Australia than the sub-continent," Taskin said. "All the bowlers worked really hard since [the tour of] New Zealand, so we just tried to execute our basics. We are improving as a bowling unit. We are all doing pretty well. Our main focus is to keep improving.
"I played in the 2015 World Cup in Australia. I experienced sporting conditions, the ball swings a bit more with the new ball but gets easier for the batter later. If we can execute according to the situation, we can do well in the future. Our main goal is improvement."
