A fresh West Indies side was taken to the cleaners by the strong Bangladesh side in Dhaka in the first ODI that was played on Wednesday, January 20. Comeback man Shakib Al Hasan gave a Man of the Match performance with the ball and announced his return to international cricket.

Shakib was banned for a year from international return for not reporting corruption approaches made to him earlier. He returned to competitive cricket in the Bangabandhu T20 Cup in Bangladesh that commenced in November 2020.

Finally, he wore the Bangladesh colors against West Indies and played like he was never away from the game. He returned figures of 7.2-2-8-4 and restricted the West Indian team to 122 before the home side chased it down with 6 wickets in hand.

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Shakib Al Hasan said post-match, "My performance in the domestic cricket does not count to me. You might count it but not me at least. All that matters to me is that how I am performing when I am representing my country. Doing bad or good eventually depends on destiny and a player can only try."

"Playing after 16-17 months is not easy. But happy with the way I performed. "[I] just kept it simple, just pitched the ball in the right areas, and hoped for the wicket to do the rest," he added.

The 33-year-old batted at no.4 and scored 19 runs off 43 balls before getting out. He revealed that setting up the batting order is completely the team management's decision and in interest of the team.

"Whether I like it or not (batting down the order) it's a team decision and I respect it because for me team is everything. I think whether I do badly or good is written on the fate but one player can only try and I am only willing to do that," Shakib said.

(With Cricbuzz inputs)