Bangladesh cricketers arrive in Sri Lanka at Jetwing Beach – Negombo 

• You have to win to start experimenting: B’desh Captain Mominul Haque

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Bangladesh Captain Mominul Haque

Bangladesh Team Director Khaled Mahmud

The Bangladesh cricketers, who arrived in Sri Lanka on 12 April to play a two-Test series in Pallekele, find themselves in a similar situation as the host country having lost their last three Tests and keenly looking forward to

ending the losing streak when the first Test commences on 21 April. Sri Lanka in fact have lost four of their last seven Tests and drawn three.

Coincidentally the last Test wins for both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have been against the lowest ranked Test team Zimbabwe in January 2020 – Sri Lanka winning by ten wickets at Harare and Bangladesh by an innings and 106 runs at Dhaka. Sri Lanka are currently ranked seventh and Bangladesh ninth in the ICC Test rankings.

“Sri Lanka are a great team at home. It will be challenging for us. It won’t be easy for us. But the situation we find ourselves in, we have to take up this challenge and get a good result. We need to have a result because we have failed in the last 5-6 Test matches. Unless you are winning you cannot experiment and you have to understand when to experiment. There is no point experimenting in Sri Lanka,” Bangladesh captain Mominul Haque has said.

“I think it will be a competitive series. Both teams have good pace bowlers. Batting is going to be very important. We haven’t been batting up to everyone’s expectations off late. So they must come and perform if we want to have success in Sri Lanka.”

Bangladesh has brought with them an extended 21-member squad with additional bowlers, as Sri Lanka will not be providing any net bowlers for their practice sessions due to the current pandemic.

Bangladesh’s preparations for the tour also have not been to the satisfaction of the captain. “I won’t say the preparation was very good. I feel the cricketers playing in white-ball cricket should have had some preparation by playing the four-day matches. They have to adapt mentally with the format and I am sure they can do it,” Mominul was quoted as saying.

The Bangladesh skipper didn’t emphasise heavily on the absence of two key players, all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan and fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman. 

“I don’t think their absence will have any impact because there are other cricketers. It’s just that we are not performing as a team and so we failed to achieve the desired results.”

While Shakib has been given permission by the Bangladesh Cricket Board to play in the ongoing IPL, Mustafizur has been dropped after the home Test series against West Indies which Bangladesh lost 0-2.

Meanwhile Bangladesh has appointed one of its former captains Khaled Mahmud as the team director to oversee practices alongside with head coach Russell Domingo, as well as other areas that need to be attended to.

Mahmud is of the view that Bangladesh are capable of doing well in Sri Lanka. 

“Although we failed to do well in New Zealand, we’ll have different conditions in Sri Lanka. We know that we have the capability. The conditions in Sri Lanka is more familiar to us. It’s quite humid weather over there at this time of the year, as we also know, Sri Lanka are one of the toughest competitors in their home turf, but in terms of the skills, I don’t think we are lacking behind them at all. We would do a lot better if we can play our best cricket according to the process. In terms of skill set, we are not behind them. If we can play our natural game and keep the process well, we can win in Sri Lanka,” Mahmud said.

“Playing in Sri Lanka will generate new opportunities, as we had played there before, so we are quite familiar with the conditions. Maybe we haven’t played in Kandy before, but we’ve played in Colombo, so we’d like to play our best cricket possible; to cultivate positive results,” he said.

Bangladesh will open their tour of Sri Lanka with an intra-squad warm-up game at FTZ Grounds – Katunayake, on 17 and 18 April before travelling to Kandy where they will stay at Hotel Ozo. The Sri Lankan team is also scheduled to stay at the same hotel during the Test series. Both teams have been put in one location to form a bio-bubble ahead of the Test matches.

Although the series is part of the ICC World Test Championships both teams are out of contention for a place in the final, which will be contested by India and New Zealand.

BANGLADESH TEST SQUAD: Mominul Haque (Captain), Liton Das, Mohammad Mithun, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Khan, Shadman Islam, Abu Jayed, Taijul Islam, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Mehidy Hassan Miraz, Nayeem Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain, Mohammad Hasan, Yasir Ali, Shoriful Islam, Khaled Ahmed, Mukidul Islam, Shuvagata Hom, Shahidul Islam, Nurul Hasan.

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