Bashar prescribes more domestic matches for Tigers’ top-order

Habibul Bashar, former men's team selector and now women's cricket's operational head, feels that men's team players are not used to the kinds of wicket served in the first Test at Sylhet and should play more domestic matches to overcome their issues.

The National Cricket League sees lively pace wickets these days while the duke ball usually moves around for a longer time.

"The wicket being used [in Sylhet] is what is seen in domestic cricket now. We saw there that batters have not adapted [to such wickets in domestic matches]. In most games there are still 250-or-below-200 scores because of seam and swing.

"On these wickets, what's most important is the batting at the beginning since it becomes easier after 20 overs. If we look at both team's batting, Sri Lanka suffered at the beginning too but they could cover for it later and recover as they had batters remaining," Bashar told reporters in Mirpur on Tuesday.

The former national team captain was asked if there were shortcomings that are inherent to domestic cricket.

"I don't think that's the case," he said.

"Most players in the national team don't get a chance to play in domestic cricket. If they play more on these kind of tracks, it will be easier. Mominul Haque doesn't play too many matches [internationally] and that's why he gets more opportunities to play in domestic matches. He is used to batting on these kind of decks. It's not that the rest are behind in skill but they are not used to it. The national team players who bat at No 1 to 5, if they can have the chance, should play more in domestic matches," Bashar opined.