'This will haunt us for a very, very long time' - Raza
The allrounder on the extreme pain he and his Zimbabwe team-mates felt post the World Cup Qualifiers, and how he is looking forward to getting some space in the coming days to think about his future
A dejected Sikandar Raza walks back after holing out • IDI via Getty Images
It [the pain] certainly hasn't died down. It is not going to die down for a long time. The World Cup is next year, so it will come back again. I think even if I do manage to get over this, when I see the World Cup without Zimbabwe and some of the other nations that played a fantastic brand of cricket, it will come back again. It will haunt us for a very, very long time. It is the harsh reality.
Nothing was said. Guys were crying. I was also in tears. We were hiding our faces next to the wall. Some were hiding their faces in their clothes. Guys were sitting in their own corners and not saying a word. [Coaches] Streaky [Heath Streak] and [Lance] Klusener said a lot of good things and after that nothing was said, and rightfully so. The reality of the matter is that we don't know what the future holds for us. We don't know who is going to be in that changing room again. A lot of things might change, but we don't know anything.
I think our next assignment is in July, which is supposed to be a T20 tri-series, Australia being one of the other teams. Either before or after this tournament, we have five ODIs against Pakistan. It leaves us three or four months without cricket.
There's certainly no regret that we couldn't qualify while I was in good form. I wouldn't have minded making a few ducks, not scoring too many or not taking wickets and still qualifying for the World Cup. At the end of the day, it is a team game and we carry each other. I always believed that it was a band of brothers.
This tournament certainly brought a lot of these nations together. We hardly get a chance to play against them. We saw the passion, hard work and the difficulties these guys go through to be where they are today. It was actually extremely nice to watch. I don't know about kinship, but I certainly feel those brothers certainly richly deserve to be part of the World Cup.
Mohammad Isam is ESPNcricinfo's Bangladesh correspondent. @isam84