Bangladesh’s technical consultant Sridharan Sriram believes his side is not far away from becoming a top team in the Twenty20 format as they had already found the formula to challenge the big guns on a regular basis, reports news agency BSS.
According to Sriram, Bangladesh put a good show in the tri-nation series in New Zealand and in the T20 World Cup, which marked their progress in this format.
Bangladesh have already won two matches in the Super 12s of the T20 World Cup, which is their best ever result in this event.
The Tigers also came close to beating India in a rain-hit game in Adelaide, a result Sriram saw as a significant stride.
“At the start of the game had anybody said that we’ll lose to India by five runs, I think anybody would have taken it. So I think we got ourselves in a position where we’re could have beaten India but we were not able to cross the line,” Siram said on Saturday.
“But having come to close, the boys gained a lot of confidence. I think eventually just by losing by five runs, everyone was disappointed in the dressing room that they could not cross the line, and they realised what a golden opportunity they have missed. It’s a great learning for them. It gives the team a lot of self-belief that if you can challenge a team like India and come so close, we are not far away.”
Bangladesh’s game against India was marred by some controversy as vice-captain Nurul Hasan accused star India batter Virat Kohli of fake fielding which could’ve cost India five penalty runs.
Also, Bangladesh had reservations about playing after the rain break because they thought the outfield was still quite wet. But umpires didn’t pay heed to any of this.
However, Sriram didn’t show it as an excuse for their five-run defeat to India.
“We are not here to offer any excuses. I did speak to the fourth umpire as soon as it happened, but I think it was the on-field umpire’s call, and that’s what we were told, but we’re not here to offer any excuses,” he remarked.
“It was quite frantic for that brief 10-12 minutes, which is understandable.”
Sriram said they are confident about beating Pakistan and they are not thinking about the semifinal or anything else even though they are still mathematically in the race of the last four.
“I’ve been very clear about this. We’re just taking it one game at a time, plan for one opposition at a time. Every game we want to go, we obviously want to win it, but we’re aware of what challenges Pakistan present. We played them in New Zealand just recently, and we have high respect for that team, so we’re going to turn up and be at our best on that day,” he added.
“We believe we can beat Pakistan, but qualifying to the semi-finals is not in our hands, unfortunately.”