Mominul eyes better results in WTC

Bangladesh will start their World Test Championship 2021-2023 campaign on Friday with the first Test of their two-match Test series against Pakistan, and Bangladesh Test captain Mominul Haque said that he believes a seventh-place finish would be satisfactory.

In the first WTC cycle from 2019 to 2021, Bangladesh failed to win any of their seven matches, ending as the bottom-placed team in the tournament. Their only draw came against Sri Lanka when the sides drew on a pitch that favoured the batsmen too much.

Besides defeats to India and New Zealand away, Bangladesh also lost two Tests at home against a West Indies side that fielded a second-string side after their key players opted to not travel to Bangladesh.

Ahead of the first Test against Pakistan, Bangladesh skipper Mominul said, “I think we have to take two steps upwards in the World Test Championship, to call it satisfactory.”

But Bangladesh will have to fight a tough battle to get out of the ninth position. In this cycle, Bangladesh have difficult series both away and home.

At home, they will be facing the likes of India and Sri Lanka, besides Pakistan. This means Bangladesh will have little to less use of their spin-dependent attack as all these sides are well-known for their proficiency against spin.

Away from home, Bangladesh will face New Zealand, South Africa and West Indies. Bangladesh have never won a Test against the first two, and with all these series set to be played on conditions suiting fast bowlers, Bangladesh are likely to struggle as they have an established weakness against swing and bounce.

And against Pakistan at home, Bangladesh are starting their campaign without the likes of Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Taskin Ahmed, making Mominul’s task more difficult than it is.

Mominul is not just hoping for a better finish in the WTC, he is also aiming at solidifying the Test team over the next two years.

“Everyone wants results. Not just me. We definitely have long-term plans in Tests. We want to build slowly, and within a series or two we will know where our Test team stands,” he said on Thursday.

Mominul might be hoping for a better result this time around, but the conditions are stacked against him. And if Bangladesh can manage to do as he hopes, it would surely be more than satisfactory.