PTI
Barbados, Apr 11: In the sweetest moment of his career as batsman and captain of Bangladesh, strangely, Habibul Bashar isn't really jumping up and down with joy.
The otherwise pleasant Bangladesh skipper is aghast that critics still see his team as “party-poopers'' of the 2007 World Cup.
Bangladesh first upset India in the group stage of the competition and then humbled the World's No. 1 team, South Africa, in the super-eight stage to inject new life in the Cup.
“Why are people moaning the absence of India and Pakistan?,” Bashar said.
“If that's the case, why not arrange a high-ranking tournament instead of a World Cup?”
From organisers to sponsors and advertisers, everyone is lamenting the absence of India and Pakistan, more of the former, after they crashed out of in the league stage itself.
“People tend to forget India and Pakistan lost two of their three matches. They are not in the Cup because they played bad cricket,” said Bashar with the smile disappearing, for once, from his face.
The feeling within Bangladesh cricket, though, is that India has slighted them often and perhaps it served them right to find their hopes dashed by the young team from the sub-continent.
India has time and again postponed or cancelled tours to Bangladesh in the past two years to facilitate more lucrative tours by other bigger and better-known international teams.
Indian captain Rahul Dravid, before the game against Bangladesh on March 17, had admitted his side lacked any “real, match information” about the boys from Bangladesh.
“We have not played against them a lot but we have tried to acquire as much information about them as possible,” Dravid said.
Bashar said irrespective of how the World has reacted to them in their hour of triumph, the feeling of the side is they can win against any side.
“We have been winning quite a few matches in the recent past, so the feeling of winning is no longer new in the dressing room.”
Bashar said that regular matches against lesser teams such as Zimbabwe and Kenya in the last two years has really been a help.
“Playing regular international cricket in 2006 and wins over those teams was good. The feeling of win brings a different belief in the dressing room.”