Home ›› 30 Apr 2023 ›› Sport
Since the second reign of Chandika Hathurusinghe began in the Bangladesh Men’s National Team, the team has displayed a different brand of cricket as they were seen playing with more intent during the Twenty20 International series against England and the white-ball series against Ireland.
The Tigers are currently preparing for their upcoming three-match One-Day International series against Ireland in England, for which they went through a three-day camp in Sylhet that ended on Saturday.
On the final day of the camp, Hathurusinghe once again pressed about their intentions of playing with positive intent while talking about Bangladesh’s approach heading into the World Cup.
“We’re going to play positive, aggressive cricket. It doesn’t mean that we will hit every ball out of the park. Aggressive cricket means that in everything we do, we do very positively, with aggressive intent as well as decision-making.
“Also, it’s going to be aggressive whether the selection, whether it’s field placing, whether it’s the type of ball that we decide to bowl, so we want to give them that to go and express themselves,” he said in a press conference.
The Bangladesh head coach was also clear on what the batters needed to do.
“The openers need to maximise this field restriction. If you’re batting in the middle-order, then you’re coming in different scenarios like sometimes four out, sometimes five out (fielders). So, it’s important how you want to start.
“So, if you don’t practice that the way you want to start, once you go into the middle then you’ll get sucked into the situation which we don’t want. We want them to have a clear mind about how they have been always regardless of the situation,” the Sri Lankan said.
Regarding the batters, Bangladesh ODI skipper Tamim Iqbal has been going through a rough patch of form, scoring 384 runs in the last year, averaging 38.40. All of his three fifties came against West Indies and Zimbabwe, with him failing against both England and Ireland.
Hathurusinghe, though, feels Tamim is on the right track, “With anyone, I just spend time in the middle, make sure that the session runs smoothly and they keep their intensity high. I am not worried about anyone’s (form). I am looking for group improvement, not individual. Yeah, he is batting very well. He was very happy in the way we did at this in this camp.”
When asked about Mustafizur Rahman’s form, he said, “When you don’t play it is very hard to say, you are in-form or out of from. He hasn’t played much. Whenever he played, he did well, he did his job for the team. So, I need to see how he goes when he come back to us, how we perform.”
Bangladesh trained in Sylhet with the conditions in England in mind, and the head coach is satisfied with how the camp has turned out to be.
“We are very happy with the conditions. They have worked hard to give us what we want. We had a good break before this. The boys’ energy and intensity were high,” he said.
Bangladesh team will leave for England in two contingents. The first group will leave Dhaka at 1 AM on Monday, while the next group will fly on Monday morning.
