Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim has said that the Tigers now have a greater responsibility to perform as they look towards the next season.

He was speaking to reporters after a day of training at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday where the national cricketers focused mainly on fitness.

The Tigers will be off to Zimbabwe next month to play a handful of Twenty20 matches while a tour of Ireland is also in the offing. They will open the 2012-13 season by participating in the ICC World Twenty20s in Sri Lanka in September.

Mushfiqur, who led Bangladesh to the final of the Asia Cup in March, believed that his charges are coming to grips with the new set of responsibilities.

"I think everyone is realising what the expectations are, and what we need to do. Their responsibilities have also increased," he said on the fifth day of training for the Tigers, though it was the captain's first.

"Today [Wednesday] Shane [Jurgensen] and I discussed about half an hour and told them what we need to do.

"As we have done well in the Asia Cup, expectations have increased. Still, it has almost been two months since we played any competitive cricket," said Mushfiqur.

The 23-year-old was realistic about Twenty20 cricket, a format in which Bangladesh haven't exactly set the world alight with their performance. But he said that recent performances have boosted expectations even in the shortest format. "We have not done well in Twenty20 cricket so because we had played well in the Asia Cup, the expectation is that we must try to repeat that and play well consistently. It's not that we will win every match, but we have to perform consistently," he said.

Mushfiqur added that the Bangladesh Premier League T20s, held last February, was a platform for the players to come to grips with the format in which they have won only four games out of 18 outings.

"The BPL has helped us immensely as we played a few Twenty20 matches and we learnt a lot through that as we played very competitive cricket," he said.