Bangladesh’s coach Chandika Hathurusingha has warned against overreacting to the team’s winless tour of New Zealand by making drastic changes to the side. The visitors lost all eight international matches despite dominating parts of a number of the games.
Hathurusingha said that the likes of Kamrul Islam Rabbi and Mehedi Hasan Miraz, on their first tour with Bangladesh, showed promising signs. Rabbi has been one of the few newcomers to impress on a tour in which five players made their international debuts across formats, and seven were on their first tour away from home.
“I am happy with their performance,” Hathurusingha said. “It is not all doom and gloom. There are a lot of positives to build on. You can’t just discard some of them or go overboard for what happened. This experience will help Bangladesh cricket and will help these players to do much better in the future. The likes of Rabbi and Miraz had changed demeanour on the field from the England series to this tour. I can see them learning quickly.”
Hathurusingha however said that Bangladesh are still some way off from being able to keep their intensity up over five days of a Test. After initially keeping pace with New Zealand in both Tests, they gave it away in the second innings. In Wellington, Bangladesh were bowled out for 160 after taking a 56-run lead in the first innings. In Christchurch, they crumbled even more rapidly in the second innings, before losing the game on the fourth evening.
“It is disappointing the way they approached not just Christchurch but also in Wellington,” Hathurusingha said. “We are not still mentally strong enough or maybe it is a physical thing, which I don’t know yet, to play five days in high intensity cricket.
“Not to take away New Zealand playing their best cricket in the last innings in Christchurch. But it is not an excuse. We were beaten by a good team at home.”
Hathurusingha however took heart from how stand-in captain Tamim Iqbal took over responsibility on behalf of the team for their poor showing in Christchurch. “All you can ask is someone taking responsibility. It is a start. You can’t ask more than that from players. Second thing is to do something about it.
“For me the starting point is accepting responsibility. As you all know, it is the first away tour after a long time. We are learning from this and we have to quickly rectify the areas we need to address. It is the way forward.”
