‘Everyone batted with passion’

Bangladesh's young opener Shadman Islam struck a team-high 67 against New Zealand XI as most of the Tigers' batsmen got some much-needed batting practice on Day 1 of the two-day practice match at Lincoln today. Speaking after the match, Shadman said that the match was helping the batters find their feet in windy conditions since they will have to contend with the wind blasts during the Test series as well.

"There was a lot of wind when we arrived here a day before the match. We have to adjust to this kind of windy conditions at Wellington and Hamilton too. The coach and Neil Mckenzie (batting coach) were telling me 'You have to adjust to the wind. Adjust to the bounce and try to wait for the ball and play it by getting behind it'," he said.

Shadman was involved in a century opening stand with Tamim Iqbal. Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar too spent time in the middle before they retired to give other batters a chance to acclimatise with the conditions in what was a good wicket to bat on. Mahmudullah Riyad and Mehedi Hasan Miraz then struck fifties to see Tigers reach 411 for six at close of play.

Tigers are looking to bounce back from a 3-0 defeat in the ODI series and Shadman said that the batsmen had to batted with passion against quick bowlers.

"Today's innings gave me quite a bit of confidence. Everyone in our team batted well today. The bowlers we faced bowl well and we scored the runs against quick bowlers today. Everyone batted with passion and if we can bat like this in the main matches, we can put up a big score," he concluded.