Tigers confident against SL: Siddons

Bangladesh national cricket team are confident against Sri Lanka at their home turf, batting coach Jamie Siddons said ahead of their two-match Test series starting on May 15 at Chattogram.

In their last five Tests against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh have won one, drawn two and lost the other two. The last time Bangladesh player Sri Lanka in Chattogram was back in 2018, when two centuries in the match from Mominul Haque, the current Bangladesh skipper, helped the Tigers secure a draw.

Siddons, this time around, is hoping to win both matches of the series and said they were confident playing at Chattogram.

“Our goal is to win both Tests at home. We always want to win all our matches at home, but the reality is it doesn’t always happen. We are going to play good cricket, and we are confident against this side. We are confident at Chattogram. To play good cricket here is our challenge, and to make sure that we turn up every game and play five days of good, hard cricket,” he said.

Bangladesh had a horrid Test series in South Africa, where they were bowled out under 100 twice in two Tests. Siddons was looking to overturn them, but also was focusing on a bigger first innings total.

“South Africa was a long tour. Probably didn’t play great Test cricket, but you’re going to have good days and bad days in cricket, we had a couple of bad days and that made us look quite bad. We got some really good starts in the first innings, we didn’t do really well in the second innings. So that’s the real focus. But to make bigger first-innings scores is more important to us,” Tigers’ batting coach said.

Bangladesh batsman Mushfiqur Rahim has been going through a lean patch in red-ball cricket as he has only one fifty in his last eight innings, but Siddons believes he will return to form in the upcoming series.

“Every batsman goes through patches where they don’t make runs. The way he is hitting them the last two days I’m convinced he will make runs here this week. I have seen a couple of really good signs, we worked on a couple of little things with him, and I think he is going to have a really successful series,” Siddons said.

The first Test between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will start on May 15 at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram, followed by the second at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka on May 23.