Bangladesh skipper has given a solid statement before the Asia Cup 2023. He believes that the clean sweep with 2-0 in the latest T20I series vs Afghanistan after recovering through a massive ODI series loss at their own home ground, has given them confidence for the upcoming Asia Cup.
Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan believes that their maiden T20I series win against Afghanistan will give a boost to his team before Asia Cup. From losing the ODI series to Afghanistan to winning the T20I series over them will give them a much-needed confidence booster before the Asia Cup, Shakib said.
“From here (T20 squad) around 80 to 90 percent of cricketers will play in the ODIs and this is a huge confidence boost for us ahead of the Asia Cup,” Shakib said after his team’s win.
Bangladesh also registered their fourth consecutive bilateral series win in this format as they previously clinched a 2-0 series win over UAE in Dubai last year before they beat England and Ireland respectively by 3-0 and 2-1 margins in their own backyard this year. This shows the one-sided dominance of Bangladesh’s Cricket Team in the shortest format of this game.
Shakib, currently the T20I captain for Bangladesh Cricket Team made sure that they stayed strong throughout the series and did not let their performances of earlier ODI series affect them. Bangladesh promoted number seven batter Afif Hossain up in the order in the rain-marred second game of the two-match series. Afif (24) responded well in his new position by putting up 67 runs in the opening partnership with Litton Das and laid the platform for the massive win against one of the best spin bowling attacks in the world especially in the shorter format.
“The five or six bowlers we have… our job is to make things easy for batters and we always try that. Now with the combination we have, we are seeing a healthy competition among pacers and spinners and this is a good thing for the team,” Shakib added.
“Towhid Hridoy and other players are with us from the last World Cup. Most of the players in this team are here either from the World Cup or Asia Cup. Two to four players are coming and going but it’s a continuous process. But we are still far from getting our best combination,” he said, adding that beating Afghanistan in T20Is came as a big relief as they’ve not done very well historically against them in this format.
“Of course, it’s a big relief when your plans work accordingly and players can also execute it on the field and we get results in our favor. What can be better than that? We didn’t have good results against them in this format. But after winning such a series in this type of condition, I think it will give us great confidence to do well in the coming days,” Shakib said.
