After a hugely disappointing World Cup mission, Bangladesh national cricket team returned home today almost silently on a special chartered flight of ICC from Pune.
The special flight carrying the Tigers landed at 10 AM.
Bangladesh lost seven out of their nine matches in the World Cup, making it their worst ever mission in the cricket's biggest extravaganza for the first time since 2007. They were in fact the first team in this World Cup to be eliminated from the semifinal race.
In a bid to seal semifinal spot in World Cup for the first time in their history, Bangladesh started with a bang, beating Afghanistan by six wickets. But thereafter their performance took a huge nosedive as they lost six matches on the trot.
They regained some pride, edging Sri Lanka past by three wickets in a controversial match which will be remembered always for the first ever 'timed out' dismissal of Sri Lankan veteran Angelo Mathews.
Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan chose to inflict this dismissal after Mathews failed to be at the crease within the two minutes regulation time.
Shakib himself came up with a stellar all-round performance in this match as he took 2-57 before hammering a 65 ball-82. During his knock, Shakib fractured his injured finger, which ruled him out of the last match against Australia.
Therefore, before the Australia match, Shakib returned to Dhaka. The rest of the members came back today.
But while the players and other officials returned today, all of the coaching staff chose to return to their respective country from Pune. Some of the members of the coaching staff, including pace bowling coach Allan Donald and computer analyst Srinivas, have already bid goodbye to the team.
Head coach Chandika Hathurusingha and the remaining members of the coaching staff will come to Dhaka later this month ahead of the two-match Test series at home against New Zealand.
The contract of all of the coaches with BCB apart from Hathurusingha and assistant coach Nic Pothas will however expire on November 30 this year. But it is learnt that the board wants all of the coaches to stay at least this year considering the upcoming two-match Test series against New Zealand at home.
New Zealand which played the three-match ODI series before the World Cup, will arrive in Bangladesh just after the showpiece event. The first Test is from November 28 in Sylhet while the second Test will start on December 4 in Dhaka.
Bangladesh later will tour New Zealand for a limited over series at the last week of this December.
