Home ›› 10 Apr 2023 ›› Sport
Bangladesh have become a force to reckoned with in 50-over cricket in recent years and have also improved in Test and Twenty20 Internationals, all due to the change of their cricketing intent.
As Bangladesh T20 and Test skipper Shakib Al Hasan said, “We had a mental setup that we’re a small team, which we were not. We just didn’t realise that.”
Bangladesh had struggled in the Tests and T20Is for a long time. They’ve seen their innings collapse in such situations that shattered the team morale which were not supposed to happen, because individually they always had quality players in the team.
The change in the Tigers’ intent and mentality has come to notice recently when Chandika Hathurusinghe came back to coach the Tigers in his second tenure and when they clean sweeped the world champions 3-0 in the T20 series.
After that, they completely dominated Ireland in their T20 series and in the only Test match in Dhaka. Bangladesh’s run rate in the Test was above four runs per over and had scored past 200 in the 20 overs format twice, with almost the same squad that played in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.
“Improving mentality is very important,” Shakib said when asked about the change in playing style.
“Up until the T20 World Cup, we thought of ourselves as a weak team, but then we realized we were never a weak team. If we believed, we would have played the semi-finals (of the T20 World Cup). If you look at the team now, everyone has improved mentally, specially, in the t20s,” he added
