Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim sounded confident as he seems to be determined to keep Pakistan winless until the end of their tour as they clash in the 2nd and final Test at Mirpur in the city today (Tuesday).
He was talking to reporters at a pre-match press conference held on Tuesday at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium at Mirpur.
He agreed if they want to win then have to bag 20 wickets. With Rubel Hossain out with a side strain – Abul Hasan, with three wickets at 123.66, is the replacement in the squad – Bangladesh have less experience in their bowling group.
The pair from Narayanganj, Shahadat Hossain and Mohammad Shahid, could form the two-man pace attack and Mushfiqur said they might opt for will pick a specialist spinner if that was the case. “I will hope to begin this Test confidently with all those positives from the previous Test and the rest of the tour,” Mushfiqur said.
“There is certainly just one goal. This is the final Test of the series and we will do whatever we need to do to win the match. Everyone is working hard towards it. We will try to keep them winless on this tour.
We will want to finish it on a high so that the next series we play, we have the momentum for that. “Obviously they will also try to take our 20 wickets and will form their XI that way. In Khulna the wicket was of course batting friendly, still our bowlers tried.
We have two options in our bowling attack. We have Abul Hasan and Shahadat Hossain, but we haven’t decided yet. We are hoping the wicket will help the bowlers. We could use two or a three-man pace attack. If we have two pace bowlers, then we will pick an extra spinner.”
Kenya, Zimbabwe and Scotland (2006), Ireland (2008) and New Zealand (2010) were winless in ODIs. Last year Zimbabwe lost the Tests 3-0 and ODIs 5-0.
In 2013, New Zealand drew both Tests and lost the ODI series 3-0, but finished the tour with a win in the T20. In 2009, Bangladesh beat West Indies 2-0 in Tests, 3-0 in ODIs but lost the T20.
The diminutive Mushfiqur said that far from being an upset, if his team won the second Test it would emphasized that this was Bangladesh’s best bilateral series.
“I don’t think it will be an upset, if you see the way the boys have been playing in the last two or three months. “There was a lot of talk that we have been playing in ODIs and not in Tests, but we have shown that we are capable of doing well in Tests too.
Still I will say that it is a different pitch and ground so we have to be prepared for more fight.
I think the boys are ready to fight for five days and after that hopefully we will grab a win and win the series”. “So far the way we have performed, I don’t think we have done so in the past.
We had three different teams in three different formats, so the challenge was no less. Also in our home ground there was expectation that we will retain our performance of the World Cup. Then there were expectations about the Test series.”
Mushfiqur expressed concern over Shakib Al Hasan’s bowling form but backed him to succeed after poor returns in the Khulna Test. “Yes it’s a concern because he is the best bowler of the team, we always expect he will take five or six wickets, so when he gets one or two wickets it seems not that good by his own standards,” Mushfiqur said.
“He is aware of that and he has a very good record in Mirpur against all the teams. So what he did right in the past I think if he can do that … I am really looking forward to it.”
