Tigers’ motto would have to be to play as a team, with the responsibility of playing good cricket falling on each and every member of the team equally, BCB director Khaled Mahmud said before he left with the national team today for Bangladesh’s two-Test series against Sri Lanka.
A 21-member preliminary squad was announced for the series to help with Tigers’ preparations in Sri Lanka. The squad boarded the flight to Colombo after 12:30 pm today.
Bangladesh had a few disastrous recent results, losing to West Indies at home in the Test series before a whitewash in both ODI and T20 series in New Zealand. Mahmud said that in the longer version, focus has to be kept throughout the match.
“The players are fit; they try very hard but why that doesn’t translate into performances in the field is a big question. I don’t think the processes are bad. We have to play as a team. We have seen enough individual performances; now is the time we want to play as the Bangladesh team.
“We want to win and play our best cricket. The team that plays better will win. It’s a five-day game so we have to go from session to session. In the Chattogram Test we dominated for four days and still lost. We don’t want that to happen. We need to keep our concentration for long periods,” Mahmud said.
There had been talks of there being hierarchies within the team and many of the established players are still being branded as youngsters despite years of experience with the national side. “I don’t want to say young players since they are all same for me. Although Tamim [Iqbal], Mushfiqur [Rahim], and Mominul [Haque] are experienced, the responsibility of each and every player is the same. When you don the national team shirt, the responsibility of everyone is equal,” he said.
The team will have to quarantine in Sri Lanka for three days after which they can begin practicing on a limited scale from April 15. The Tigers will then play a two-day intra-squad practice match before the first Test in Kandy on April 21.