Sabbir Rahman (R), Taskin Ahmed (C) and Nasir Hossain walk from the team hotel to the nearby mosque to say Friday prayers, the day after Bangladesh scripted a 79-run victory against India in the first ODI. PHOTO: STAR

The last few months the Bangladesh cricket team has been performing one wonder after another in ODIs. The Mashrafe Bin Mortaza-led team had presented a new Bangladesh in the World Cup in Australia-New Zealand by playing an exciting brand of cricket.

They continued their fearless brand to clinch a historic 3-0 success against Pakistan at home in the last ODI series. There were some cynics who tried to remind the inexperience of the Pakistan side but surely the Tigers' performance against India on Thursday night re-established Mashrafe's claim that Bangladesh are one of the most consistent teams in ODI cricket at the moment.

The attacking and professional approach against India in the first game provided evidence that the absence of a team like Bangladesh in any multinational tournament would be a great loss.

Mashrafe told reporters before the start of the match that they started to believe that they could beat any team after the 2007 World Cup.

And it seemed that they have reached a new horizon now and opener Tamim Iqbal described it perfectly.

"There was a time when we believed that we needed to give our hundred percent and a bad performance from our opponents to win a match, but now we believe that if we can maintain our process then we can get the result," Tamim told The Daily Star yesterday.

Since Mashrafe took over captaincy, Bangladesh's pace attack found a new belief which was evident in the World Cup. The performance against India in the first game strengthened that belief.

Apart from the fact that the pacers put on a brave face, the batsmen too continued with their fearless approach. The reason was explained by Mashrafe. He said: "Everybody is contributing brilliantly to the team's progress but I must mostly credit our coach (Chandika Hathurusingha) for bringing so much belief to our batting. He gave our batsmen the freedom that they required. He asked them to trust their skill and talent and to play fearless cricket."

"Since the 2007 World Cup we have had ups and downs in our performances. So far our performances this year are very good and I think the reason behind it is self-confidence. A bad time can come again but what we must do is play good, positive cricket," he added.

Bangladesh established themselves as a good team at home but as Tamim said they need to win some more series' against top opponents to establish their full control at home and accomplish their dream of establishing themselves as one of leading nations in world cricket once they start to play good cricket overseas.