Bangladesh Head coach Chandika Hathurusingha says that the absence of key players like Tamim and Liton Das has a huge impact on the performance of the team and replacing their position is a big challenge for the team.
Head Coach Hathurusingha on absence of Tamim-Liton for Asia Cup
The Bangladesh Skipper Tamim Iqbal and Liton Das have been sidelined from the ongoing Asia Cup. Bangladesh had their first match against Sri Lanka where the co-hosts won the match with 5 wickets.
Tamim Iqbal has been ruled out due to his back issues and Liton Das was sidelined due to his fever. The head coach says the experience of these players could have helped Bangladesh in their first match against Sri Lanka.
On this occasion, Tamim has hinted at his return for the ODI World Cup 2023 in India which is set to start on October 5.
Batting first, the openers Mohammad Naim and Tanzid failed to create the impression as they were sent out with 16 and 0 respectively. Despite Shantou’s impressive knock of 89 runs, the other batters struggled against Sri Lanka bowlers.
The head coach laments on missing the top-order batsman in the series. He said, “Losing that much of experience at the top of the order, it’s a big challenge for any team.”
“We can’t do anything when both of them one is sick and the other is injured. We can’t do anything about it. But we back player we have over here. Certainly, they are talented, that’s why they are picked.”
“We haven’t seen the wicket yet. If the wicket condition is different, then we will think about different combination,” he said.
“Afghanistan have one of the best bowling attacks in world cricket especially in limited over cricket. They have two really world class spinners and decent seamers,” said Hathurusingha.
“So it’s definitely a challenge, but we have played them recently and our players had some success. It all depends on how you perform on the day. We are very much aware of the challenge,” he said.
“We are well aware of their threat and we played them recently in ODI and T20I as well,” he said adding that he is confident to make a comeback in their do-or-die game.
“This game (against Afghanistan) is very important because of what happened in the last game against Sri Lanka. We know that it is a must-win game. We certainly didn’t play to our potential in the last game and we didn’t represent ourselves well enough. But we are confident we will bring our ‘A game’ against Afghanistan,” he concluded.
On the other hand, Afghan Skipper Hasmatullah is confident about their batting lineup and said, “I don’t think so( that bowling is our major strength). Our bowling is our strength but our batting has also improved. As I have mentioned before, some of the youngsters that come to the team like Ibrahim, Gurbaz and Rahmat. So our batting is also strong,” he said.
“But what happened in the last two series, we collapsed in two games and we have talked about it in the team meetings. We will try not to do it again,” he said.
“I believe that our middle order will do well and also in Lahore it is more similar like Afghanistan pitches like we play domestic cricket in the same kind of pitches. So that will help us. This is also an extra advantage with our team,” he concluded.
Bangladesh will be playing their next match against Afghanistan on the fourth match of the Asia Cup 2023 at Gaddafi Stadium on September 3.
