Bangladesh women's cricket coach Sarwar Imran has blamed a breakdown of confidence and disruptive off-field decisions for the team's 31-run defeat to Pakistan in the Asian Games bronze medal match at Korogi Athletic Park, a result that ended their hopes of repeating their bronze medal from the previous edition.
Chasing 145 on a flat pitch, Bangladesh were bowled out for 114, with the batters showing little urgency throughout. Sarwar pointed to a powerplay collapse as the immediate tactical reason for the loss.
"With 145 runs, you need roughly 40-45 runs in the powerplay and then 100 runs in 15 overs. We scored 24 runs in the powerplay, which put us well behind. The powerplay runs cost us the match," he said.
But the coach went further, tracing the team's broader decline to the Asia Cup, when a narrow defeat to Sri Lanka triggered a wave of negative coverage that he believes has lingered over the squad ever since.
"After that loss, various negative reports started coming from different places. We could not even score 120 or 130 against teams like Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. We are carrying that into the Asian Games," he said.
What clearly aggrieved Sarwar most was the timing of two significant announcements made during the tournament: reports that his contract would not be renewed, and captain Nigar Sultana Joty's decision to step down from the T20 captaincy.
Both developments became public while the team were still competing, something he argued was fundamentally damaging.
"You are in the middle of a tournament and you remove the head coach and captain. Things are being said about me, that I will not be kept, this person will not be kept. So how can you expect anything good?" he said.
"This cannot happen during a tournament. We are playing a tournament, and you have sized up the head coach and captain. Negative news can have an impact on the team and the players."
Sarwar acknowledged the team's technical deficiencies had also worsened.
"Every team is hitting sixes easily, but our team cannot. Even the player who used to hit them is no longer doing so. We were not in this situation. We came back from the World Cup having played well. Now things have suddenly changed," he said.
Sarwar's two-year contract with the Bangladesh Cricket Board expires in October and is not expected to be renewed.