NEWS
Follow UsNewly-appointed Bangladesh Cricket Board president Faruque Ahmed has made it clear that he doesn’t like Chandika Hathurusinghe but the Bangladesh head coach is looking forward to meet him in person and figure out a way to take this team forward.
"I understand when there is a new leadership which has come in. They have their views but I am looking forward to going and getting a chance to speak to them, that's number one. And the other one is my job is to prepare the team the best I can and then whatever the hard work we have done in the last few months," said Hathurusingha before the second Test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi, starting on August 29 (Friday).
Bangladesh won the first Test by 10 wickets and are leading 1-0 in the two-match series. After Pakistan declared on 448/6, Bangladesh amassed 565 in their first innings. They managed to take a lead of 117 and then bundled Pakistan out for just 146 in the second innings. They hunted down the required 30 runs without any fuss.
Talking about Bangladesh’s batting, Hathurusinghe said: "If you remember, we had played on very result-oriented pitches previously. In those pitches, if you scored 250, 230 or 260, those were match-winning scores, which happened against New Zealand and even against Sri Lanka to a certain extent. But this (playing with a different mindset in Pakistan), mainly because of the pitch, was really good. Our application and our game plan was slightly different for this Test match.
"We talked about spending time in the middle, getting their fast bowlers to come and bowl second and third spells. That mindset changed, the approach was different, our game plan was slightly different because of the condition. That helped a lot to put up a good show with the bat.
"I think it is important that you have good partnerships early on, especially those 12 overs that openers bat. It also gave us little time, and that gave us a lot of confidence and control of the game on the third morning."
Despite the win, Bangladesh could make some changes to their XI depending on conditions. "We always go with an offensive strategy. Of course, depending on the condition, the strategy changes. We know our strengths and our limitations, and we know the opposition's strengths and limitations as well. On top of that, you look at the pitch and the overhead conditions as well, so we will take that into account when we think about strategies," said Hathurusingha.
"The morale is good for obvious reasons. Beating Pakistan in Pakistan, it's not an easy task. They are a really good and strong team. Still, we expect a really good fight in the second game as well. We might have a few changes depending on the conditions tomorrow when we look at the pitch. We didn't get to look at the pitch today as it was covered and the weather is slightly different than the last game."
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