Unfazed by warm-up defeat Tigers gear up for World Cup

Sports Live: Despite their 95-run defeat to India in the last warm-up game, Bangladesh remained calm as they didn’t take the defeat seriously, considering it as just a mere practice game.

While the ICC Cricket World Cup, the cricket’s biggest carnival rolls on to the ground from tomorrow (Thursday), Bangladesh will get down to their business on June 2 (Sunday) by facing off South Africa at The Oval.

Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Bin Mortaza said there is nothing to be worried in just one defeat and urged his side to keep faith on their ability. The captain believes his side has already coped with the condition of English, which keeps them in good stead.

”We had a few matches in Ireland so we’ve spent about four weeks here. So I believe we have coped with the condition already” Mashrafe said after the last warm-up game.

”Nothing to be worried with just one defeat. Our top order is scoring some runs and Soumya got few fifties, Liton played well and Mushfiqur is consistent. Hopefully our top order will continue to score,” he added.

Mashrafe used nine bowlers and didn’t give any bowlers to bowl more than eight overs, which clearly indicated that he wants experiment ahead of their first game in the cricket’s biggest extravaganza.

”We had a few niggles, like with Shakib and some pace bowlers so we can’t take risk. I also had a hamstring issue, Mustafiz had a calf issue and Shakib also had a bad back spasm last week,” he said.

Despite the defeat Bangladesh could search motivation from their past record. Ahead of 2015 World Cup, they lost their both warm-up games and even ahead of tri-series tournament in Ireland in which they lifted the trophy as unbeaten champions, they lost their warm-up game to a second strong Ireland side.

 

Dhaka, 29 May (campuslive24.com)//MIH

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