DHAKA, Sept 23, 2019 (BSS)-Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo warned his players to guard against the complacency when they take on Afghanistan in the Tri-nation T20 series final on Tuesday at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium here.
The national players seemed to be in a relaxed mood after snapping Afghanistan’s four-match winning streak over them as they won the last game by four wickets in Chattogram.
He looked so confident that Mohammad Saifuddin went on to say that they even could beat Afghans if they give their 60 percent.
The comment is believed to irk Domingo so much so that he reminded his players that they are yet to display with their perfect cricket in the tournament.
He said that Bangladesh needs to be very good to beat this Afghanistan and there is no question that they can overcome them with giving just 60 percent.
“I don’t think we can win with 60 per cent. We have to play very well. If we play 60% and Afghanistan play 50%, they will beat us. That’s our challenge. We have to get better. If we don’t raise our intensity, Afghanistan is going to beat us,” Domingo said in the pre-final conference here on Tuesday.
He said Bangladesh needs to get their skills and mindset in the place to beat Afghans who won four matches against them in six meetings.
“We know that Afghanistan are a good side but if we play to our potential, we can beat anybody. It won’t be a surprise for us if we play to our potential. The challenge for us is to get our skills and mindset in place to beat teams like Afghanistan,” Domingo said.
According to Domingo, this skill set and mindset is very important to deal with Afghans two spinners-Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan, who have regularly been tormenting Bangladesh in every format of cricket.
“Mujeeb and Rashid are two of the big name spinners, so a lot of the batters have struggled against them. They are world-class spinners. We can work on certain options in the nets, on mindset and game-plan. It won’t be perfected overnight,” the South Africa remarked.
“We haven’t played the perfect game of cricket yet. We have been good in certain areas and average in certain areas. We are still trying to find the perfect game. So we haven’t got to the last five or six overs with only two or three wickets down. We lose too many wickets in the first 10 overs. We have to get to the 15th over with two wickets down, maybe, so that we have a platform for the last five overs.”
Domingo however said an option could be deal with Afghans spinners with pace and bounce even though he is not sure what the wicket will offer. But with World T20 in mind, Domingo said they could nurse the players by giving many crunch game times.
“I think we are going to add a fourth seamer to our 12 and make a decision tomorrow, looking at the wicket. It is an area we can exploit if there’s more pace and bounce. But [playing four pace bowlers] is definitely something that we can consider,” he said.