|| CF DESK ||

Shakib Al Hasan spoke to the press during the inauguration of his teammate Rubel Hossain's motorcycle showroom on Saturday as he talked about topics like the T20 World Cup, the Zimbabwe series, and various other matters.

Shakib, who scored a century for the first time in Dhaka Premier League yesterday, is not playing the first three games against Zimbabwe. Bangladesh dominated the first match of the five-T20 series against Zimbabwe, winning convincingly by eight wickets.

However, Shakib does not consider playing against Zimbabwe to be ideal preparation for a major tournament like the World Cup.

"If we start thinking about the World Cup by considering games against Zimbabwe or the USA, I think that's a big mistake. The World Cup is a completely different environment, and the more we can adapt to the pressure there, the better our chances of success." Shakib said.

“Playing against Zimbabwe is not ideal. When you're playing against strong opposition—like when we played in challenging conditions in New Zealand and against Pakistan leading up to the 2022 World Cup—we naturally arrived with much better preparation. From that perspective, I think it's not ideal and probably not our best option to prepare."

After the home series against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh will fly to the USA for a three-match series against the hosts. Then they will continue their World Cup mission in the USA and the West Indies.

"When we last played in the T20 World Cup in 2022, I think we had a reasonably decent performance. It wasn't great, but nobody would say it was terrible. I hope this World Cup (2024) will exceed that benchmark."

"If we are to achieve that, we must win the three matches in the first round. If we can do that, I think it would be a pretty good achievement. From there, we can think about progressing further," Shakib added.