Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha said on Wednesday that they are taking inspiration from the latest upsets in the ongoing ICC World Cup as they prepare to take on India.
The World Cup came to life after Afghanistan beat England while Netherlands defeated New Zealand as it brought some excitement in the tournament and Bangladesh looks keen to join the party by bringing down high-flying India down to earth, who are yet to lose a game in the competition.
Bangladesh announced their arrival in the international scene by beating India in the World Cup in 2007 but despite coming close lost their Asian neigbours in 2011, 2015 and 2019 but the tourist can take inspiration from the fact they have beaten India on three occasions in the ODIs during their last four meetings.
“Because of what happened in the last week( in the game involving Afghanistan and Netherland) World Cup is really opening. We are all inspired by that,” Chandika Hathurusingha told reporters on Wednesday.
“We have six games to go, we still think we can win those games. That’s the motivation and inspiration for tomorrow,” he said.
“We had success in the recent past against India but it is a different ball game in the World Cup. We are hoping to have a complete performance. India, the in-form team in the World Cup, has a not-so-good game, and we play to our potential, it will serve us. We need to start well,” he said.
“I can only ask my team to do 100 per cent and to give our best. I have no little control of the outcome after that. If we play to our potential, I think we can beat any team,” he added.
Hathurusingha said that they are waiting for a scan report of Shakib al Hasan for the quad tear that he sustained in the last game.
Shakib, who suffered a slight quad tear during the match against New Zealand, skipped the optional training session on Wednesday at MCA but batted for 45 minutes in the nets on October 17 to see whether he can make him available for the game.
“He( Shakib) had a good batting session yesterday. He did a bit of running between the wickets as well. We are waiting for the result of the scan we did today. We haven’t tried his bowling yet. We will assess him tomorrow morning, and make a decision,” said Hathurusingha
“If he is not ready to play, we won’t risk it. If he is ready, there’s a chance of him playing tomorrow,” he said adding that there is a process they follow before making a call to include a cricketer coming from injury.
“Any injury situation, first, it’s the medical staff. They give us their opinion. And either they’re green light or red light. They give us education on what the players are, where the players are at. And then if they think that there’s no risk and that the player get the choice of playing the game or not, then it comes to captain and the coach to think that is that a risk in terms of playing, in terms of tactically, whether if it is not 100% or you can do one discipline or both discipline. Yeah, that’s how the process works,” he said while hinted that they might for a change in their playing XI against India.
“We have a different combination planned against India. It is according to the wicket and opposition,” he said
“You need to have an extra bowling option. The wicket is going to be good. India has a very strong batting line-up. That’s one consideration we are thinking of,” he said.
Despite frequent changes in their batting order, Hathurusingha insisted that they are not unsettled rather they are not performing as per expectation in the ongoing ICC World Cup.
Bangladesh have lost three or more wickets inside 100 runs on nine occasions out of their last 11 ODIs, while in every game of the tournament they have come with a different batting line-up that hardly suggest that the batting unit is a settled, though Hathurusingha begs to differ.
“We are not unsettled. We are not performing yet to our expectations. I know that the players want to do better. We haven’t had a complete performance in the batting group,” Hathurusingha told reporters on Wednesday.
“The batting order goes by according to our strategy and what we think is our best combination for the game. Those things are communicated to the players well in advance. We have trained the way we want to play as well. No one complains. Sometimes we are successful and sometimes it doesn’t work, so we are going to stick to our plan for this World Cup,” he said,
“Hopefully this game, as we are playing on a really good pitch, and we are expecting to have a complete batting performance tomorrow,” he said.
“This wicket is probably the best batting wicket we have come across so far. Even the practice wickets were similar. We had a really good net session yesterday. We haven’t put up a complete performance with ball and bat. We are expected to do a complete performance. We know that we play as a team and perform to our capabilities, we have beaten big teams. We have done well in the past. I think we, fingers crossed, have one of those days,” he added.
