Tigers seek to reboot in Taunton

A precariously placed Bangladesh team reached Taunton yesterday, where they will attempt to get their World Cup campaign back on track by winning their next match against the West Indies on June 17. Disappointed and frustrated after Tuesday’s match against lower-ranked Sri Lanka was abandoned due to incessant rainfall in Bristol, the Tigers will have had two days of rest to revive their spirits before getting back to training tomorrow.

Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mosaddek Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mohammad Mithun and Liton Das did not make the short trip from Bristol to Taunton, instead choosing the two days to spend some time away. They will rejoin the team by tomorrow and it is hoped that the in-form Shakib Al Hasan, who suffered a left-thigh strain during the match against England in Cardiff on Saturday, will be okay to re-sume practising.

The team were in a pretty relaxed state as they disembarked the bus, having stopped midway for lunch, at around 4:00pm yesterday. Although Taunton is the most sparsely populated stop on the Ti-gers’ trek across the UK, within 15 minutes of them reaching the team hotel, some local Bangladeshis had arrived to meet their heroes.

Bangladesh are now in seventh position on the 10-team table with three points from four matches. They will now have to win at least four of their five remaining matches to stand a chance of making the semifinals.

The quiet town seems to be the ideal place for the Tigers to reflect on a World Cup campaign that started brilliantly with a win over South Africa but has since been derailed through poor weather and sub-par performance, and reset for a campaign that is not yet halfway through.