‘To be the best, you have to beat the best’

Mahmudullah Riyad will be leading the Tigers in the upcoming T20 World Cup in UAE and Oman. In a conversation with The Business Post’s Samiur Rahman, the Twenty20 international skipper spoke about the preparations and the expectations in the global event where Bangladesh haven’t managed to display a strong performance to date.

The Business Post: You are leading the Tigers on a global scale tournament for the first time. What are your expectations from the team? What kind of results will satisfy you as the leader of this group?

Mahmudullah Riyad: First of all, it is a great honour. Inshallah, if I stay fit and play in the World Cup, it will be a big honour for me to represent my country as a skipper on the big stage. And secondly, the expectations are always there. We expect to do really well in this World Cup, especially because we have played some good cricket during the last few months. We have won three back-to-back series, which will give us that

winning confidence to go in this World Cup. We will try to play some attacking, aggressive cricket over there and try to win games. So, expectations are there, but I don’t want to express them in the media or anywhere else. That will be kept in the dressing room within our team. If we can achieve it, then everyone will come to know.

The Business Post: According to you, what is the strongest side of your team? And in which area do you think your team lack which the opposition can capitalise?

Mahmudullah Riyad: I feel our bowling unit has been wonderful. The kind of variety, depth and experience we have in our bowling will give us an edge as a bowling unit. So, I am very confident in my bowlers, and they are doing really good work and are performing very well under pressure in any conditions. Especially in this format, they are outstanding. On the other hand, we need to step up our game as a batting unit in this World Cup. Because there will be times when we will need to chase scores like 170-180 against big teams. To be the best

team there, we need to be aggressive, and there can’t be any fear of failure that I really feel to be like in this format. To be the best team, you have to beat the best teams, that is what I believe. So, we need to think like that, and we need to act like that. Our batting unit has to take some responsibilities and that will be our main challenge over there, I think.

The Business Post: Shakib Al Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman will be coming from the Indian Premier League, with the experience of playing in the World Cup venues. What help do you expect from these two while setting up the strategy?

Mahmudullah Riyad: That’s a very good thing that Shakib and Mustafiz are playing in the IPL at this moment. I hope they will do really well, which will give us a bit more confidence because if Shakib and Mustafiz are playing really well over there, it will help us too. When they will join us after IPL, we will get the knowledge of how

the wickets are over there and what strategy we need to take to be in our best game. Yes, obviously, their information and their experience will give us some more knowledge to play well over there.

The Business Post: Two new coaching staff members, Ashwell Prince and Rangana Herath, joined the team in recent times. How are they giving inputs and making things different?

What are the positive changes they are bringing in?

Mahmudullah Riyad: Ashwell and Rangana have recently joined the team. Ashwell has been working pretty hard with the batsmen. He is a sensible guy, and I think he is a very good batting coach. His work ethic and information are quite handy for the batsmen. He is to the point. If anyone makes any mistake or anyone needs a bit of help, he is there.

Rangana has been very good. His experience, I think, will help all the spinners. He has very good communication with all of us, which might help the spinners as well. I think it is a very good combination of both that will help us in the coming days.

The Business Post: A bunch of young cricketers is going to play their first big global event. As a captain, what are your expectations from them and what is your message to them?

Mahmudullah Riyad: Yes, there are few young guys like Shamim (Hossain), Shoriful (Islam), Afif (Hossain); they all are very talented. They have the potential to be top players in the international arena. I feel if we can give them that freedom to go out and express themselves, that’s what they need from the team management. From my side, it is to be there and play aggressive cricket in this format. I think Afif has been batting very well in this format.

Sohan (Nurul Hasan) is there, Nasum (Ahmed) has also been bowling very well. We would like to set them free and let them play the way they want. Saying that, yes, there will be different conditions, situations where they will need to think as well, that comes

with maturity as well. I think expectations will always be there if you are playing in the international arena for Bangladesh, but we just need to keep them aside, have to let them play freely.