India players’ expertise to outclass any spin attack is well known but Bangladesh spin coach Sunil Joshi, also a former Indian spinner backed his current charges to come handy against his native country in their encounter in Birmingham on July 2.
Joshi, who played 15 Test and 69 ODI for India between 1996 to 2001, said he knows the Indian batsmen very well and his experience will come to the fore in the match as he is eagerly waiting to see the battle of the two teams.
Bangladesh must win the game to keep them alive in the semifinal race.
Led by Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh spinners have been in great form to the delight of Joshi.
“As a spin coach you cannot ask for more,” said Joshi. “Shakib is a legend, no doubt. It is a source of great pride that we have a player like that in the Bangladesh side. He is Mr Consistent for us be it with the bat, the ball or in the field.
“He has really focused on his fitness and lost between five and seven kilos recently. You can see how that has paid off with his running between the wickets, you can see the hunger in his cricket. His presence is really helping us to take our whole game forward.”
India also has two great spinners in Yuzvendra Chahala and Kuldeep Yadav to their disposal but Joshi backed Bangladeshi batsmen also.
“We all know they play spin well,” he added. “But so do we, we play spin very well and played it well against Afghanistan.
“We have shown in the white ball formats here and before this how we are a good side, we won in Ireland, we have beaten West Indies home and away and come close to beating India three times in the past three years.
“We have our own brand of cricket we are playing with the likes of Liton Das, Mushfiqur Rahim, Soumya Sarkar, Tamim Iqbal, then Mashrafe Mortaza with the ball, and the others.”
Joshi wants to bring his own experience of playing in England to bear – pointing out the way, for example, that the open grounds allow the breeze to continually change direction. But he admitted he would enjoy another surface at Edgbaston similar to that at the Hampshire Bowl which made life difficult for batsmen against the slow bowlers, underlined by how Afghanistan’s spinners restricted India in their previous match. “We have quality spinners, the same as India,” added Joshi. “How do you deal with them? Facing them and bowling to them it is the same. You think of it one ball at a time. “Every team has their strengths and weaknesses. I have seen India very closely when we have played them. We know where to bowl to them.”
