Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons expressed his disappointment at the team suffering a 3-0 clean sweep against Pakistan; however, he believed it was not overly concerning for a side currently undergoing a rebuilding process.
Bangladesh lost the third and final match by seven wickets at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Sunday, with Mohammad Haris hitting a swashbuckling maiden international ton to help Pakistan chase down a challenging target of 197 runs in 17.2 overs.
This was the second consecutive series defeat for the Liton Das-led team after they lost to associate nation UAE by 2-1 in the previous series.
But Simmons doesn’t want to be gutted by the losses.
‘I think where we are, we are trying to build something,’ Simmons said following the defeat on Sunday.
‘We’re trying to change up a few things. There are a lot of young players in the team. So the disappointment is there but not as much as if we had settled as a team.
‘It’s disappointing but not as bad as it would be when we settle properly.’
Bangladesh, after being asked to bat first for the first time in the series, got a strong first half of the innings thanks to Parvez Hossain and Tanzid Hasan, who added 110 runs for the opening partnership.
This was Bangladesh’s fifth 100-run partnership in an opening and the first since 2024.
But the middle order couldn’t stand up as much as the team would’ve liked to, as Bangladesh managed 196-6, still their highest against Pakistan in T20Is.
Simmons said that the performance of the opening duo of Tanzid and Parvez was a big positive from the series.
‘I think the biggest positive is that we’re trying to get that opening pair working together, and today we saw how destructive they can be when they work together,’ he said.
However, Simmons didn’t hide the fact that their bowling could have been better in the series.
‘We didn’t bowl as well as we should have done,’ the Caribbean said. ‘[But] I don’t want to say that too much like that. We didn’t bowl well, but Mohammed Harris batted exceptionally well. We didn’t bowl as well as we can, but they took advantage of it, and that’s how cricket is,’ said Simmons.
Bangladesh missed the services of their two frontline seamers, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed, due to injury in the series.
But Simmons wants to take the series as a learning curve for his team.
‘I think we are trying to make sure that our seamers are doing what they need to do on wickets like this because we don’t really get that many wickets like these in Bangladesh,’ said the former Caribbean all-rounder.
‘So when we come out and we play on a wicket like this, things have to be different,’ he added.
The national team returned to Bangladesh on Monday before going on Eid break. They will tour Sri Lanka for a three-format series after the break.
