Teamwork the antidote

21 minutes. That is how long Mashrafe Bin Mortaza spoke during the pre-match press conference at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur yesterday.

Compare that to Ravi Shastri's five and you can easily figure out which side was the more enthusiastic one on the eve of the Asia Cup final.

But then again one cannot blame Mashrafe, or the 40-odd journalists in the media room who kept peppering the captain with questions. After all, it is not a position that the Tigers find themselves in very often.

The simple fact that one big knock or one fierce bowling performance might pave the way for Bangladesh to be officially recognised as the best team in Asia in a format that they have been struggling in for years in itself can give the jitters to any of the home fans.

But before that, they have before them the enormous task of beating the best T20 team in the world. Nothing has managed to stop or even threaten India in the Asia Cup so far.

Mashrafe indicated that it was difficult to find a chink in India's armour. The hosts are instead focused on their own strength: teamwork.

“Clearly India are the favourites, everybody knows that. But what we can do is play as a team. We may not have one or two players who can change the match single-handedly, but at this point of time we have good unity in our team and we want to continue that.

“With India's batting order there's no question of trying to find out a particular weakness. You need to bowl well throughout the match. They will give you the charge, but you need to minimise that. I guess the key areas will be the first six overs and towards the end of the match, because those are the most vulnerable periods,” said Mashrafe.  

“The important thing here is to focus on our improvement. I had said at the start of the tournament that we are not here as the champion team. We are focused on minimising our mistakes.

“It's not as though our cricket is going to stop if we don't win he final. It doesn't matter if we lose, we will move on from there. We have a big future ahead. Yes, if we do win, the feeling will be amazing, but the main focus will be on improving our game,” he added.

Mashrafe also admitted that the team will enter new territory today and that it would be important for them to be able to sustain the pressure.

“We don't play in finals that often, so there is a chance that at some points of the game our minds may not function properly. I believe that the team that takes decisions without any doubts on the field, will end up winning the game,” he said. The captain also suggested that there will be changes in the team for the final game.

“We won't do anything to surprise them. What we believe is that there is no such thing as the winning combination. We prepare the team as per the wicket, the opponent and our strength,” he added.

When asked if he considers this match as the most important in his career, Mashrafe said: “I rate the game against England in the World Cup, which got us to the quarter-final, higher than this.”