Hathurisingha insists Tigers 'prepared well’

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha insisted that his side had had a good initial preparation phase heading into the T20 World Cup next month in the USA and West Indies. 

The Tigers won their five-match T20I series against a relatively feeble Zimbabwe 4-1 and will fly to the USA in the early hours of Thursday where they will play a three-match T2OI series against the co-hosts before a solitary warm-up match which will cap off their build-up to the T20 World Cup.

Despite the margin of victory against the Chevrons, who failed to qualify for the major event after losing to Uganada, the Tigers came under scrutiny for their underwhelming performances, particularly with the bat.    

"Our preparation, I thought, was very good. We had a good camp in Chattogram and then we played five games against Zimbabwe. So, in those five games, we had the opportunity to give most of the players exposure in certain situations," Hathurusingha told reporters in Mirpur on Wednesday.

"There's a little bit of concern about a few individual performances but other than that, I thought it was good preparation. We got a lot out of it," he added. 

Bangladesh's strength has been their bowling in recent contests and there was a case to test their batters enough in the series against a much weaker side but captain Najmul Hossain Shanto's insistence on bowling first every time he won the toss did not sit right with many experts. In a couple of instances when the Tigers were sent into bat first, they had to grind hard to post totals of 165-5 and 157-6 respectively. Opener Tanzid Tamim scored two fifties and ended the series as the highest run-getter with 160 runs. Middle-order batter Towhid Hridoy (140 runs in five matches) and veteran Mahmudullah Riyad (89 in four matches) also impressed with proactive strike rates.

"In a few matches, we managed to get a good start and in a few when we didn't, we managed to finish well. So, everybody got an opportunity to bat in the middle, that was a positive," Hathurusingha said.

"Yes, individually, some of the players would have loved to spend time in the middle and score runs but in T20 cricket, anything can happen because it's a very different game compared to the other two formats.

"So, yes, we would love our top order to score all the time as when it happens, it takes a lot of pressure out of the other players. I'm confident that in the five matches leading up to the first game [of the T20 World Cup], we will be able to get those areas of concern sorted."

Bangladesh, pitted in Group D alongside South Africa, Sri Lanka, Netherlands, and Nepal, will take on the Lankans in their opening World Cup fixture on June 8 in Dallas, USA.