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Rahim 'really proud' despite narrow defeat

Chittagong - Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim says he is proud of the way his side played against England, even though they were heartbroken by Ben Stokes on day five.

The Tigers needed 33 runs to win on the day, while England needed two wickets, and Stokes took this in one over within the first hour of play.

But Rahim was not down-hearted, saying his side did very well considering they had not played a Test in 15 months, and that he hope they would impress as much in the second match in Dhaka.

Rahim said: "Probably it was not in our favour, 33 runs and two wickets, but the boys put in so much effort over the last five days, after 15 months.

"I'm really proud. They scored 240 in the second innings, if we'd managed to get 290 in our first innings, it would have brought it [the target] down.

"Our boys fought it out which is really impressive and hopefully we'll do the same in the next match.

"I thought it was a good track, it was spinning but not unplayable. Hopefully we can come up with some good plans.

"If you want to play in the subcontinent, it should be that way and we have some good spinners."

England skipper Alastair Cook was certainly relieved, but was confident his bowlers would have done the job no matter what.

Cook said: "It was a really good Test match, to think we were here on day five with that wicket. It was such a tight game, so credit to both sides.

"I'm glad we held our nerve, the quality we have in our attack, we got it reversing. We also had the option of the new ball, which we could use with the spinners.

"It would have been a gamble but it was quite hard to bat against the new ball. It was a great match and we want to thanks our loyal 10-15 supporters up there."

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