Bangladesh national team has seen a lot of ups and downs over the last few months and they will be hoping to bring back their good old days, when they were not invincible but neither was their approach so shambolic.

A poor display in the home-series against Sri Lanka earlier this year was followed by a set of fired up performances in the Nidahas Trophy where the Tigers fell victim to a tragic last-ball defeat in the final, and now, halfway through the year, they find themselves plummeted to an unexplainable low after getting whitewashed by Afghanistan.

“We were better than the first two games. But disappointing the way we played this series and we need to come up with better plans. We restricted them to a reasonable total. We are a good enough batting side to chase that, but in the middle overs we conceded too much and that costed us.

“Mushfiq and Mahmudullah did really well, but we need to know how to close it off. They have some quality spinners and they were the better side on the night,” said Shakib after the defeat against Afghanistan.

And unfortunately, Afghanistan were not the better side just last night, they have been the better side throughout the whole series. Bangladesh have been coming up with explanations after a defeat and yet they have failed to overcome those mistakes they talk about.

Being “better than the first two games” in a the final game of a three-match series and still losing all the clashes shows that Bangladesh have to aim for the best if they want to shine in the format they haven’t been very good in.

Bangladesh were actually worse than what a defeat by a narrow margin makes them look like. Five consecutive boundaries smashed by Mushfiq in the penultimate over was what brought them closer to the target in the end and somewhat attempted to cover up how pathetic they were in the beginning of the innings.

Mushfiq, the Man of the Match, said: “We knew how the wicket would behave and we knew it was going to difficult on this track. We were few runs short in the final overs; you can't expect 20-odd runs to be made in the second-last over.

“Congratulations to Afghanistan, they played well. It's disheartening because even though we lost the series, we were playing for pride. I think 145+ was a par score, especially with a bowling attack like Afghanistan. They exploited the surface very well, and they did well overall in the entire series.

“Mahmudullah and I managed to build a partnership, but we needed a few more boundaries I think. Even off the last ball, it could have gone either way, but I think these things happen in cricket and we'll look to come back stronger next time.”