Hathurusingha urges Tigers to bring up their best game

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha urged tigers to bring up their best game against Afghanistan, what turned out to be a ‘do or die’ game for them after suffering a five-wicket defeat to Sri Lanka in its Asia Cup opening game.

Admitting the Afghans bowling attack will be a tough ask to deal with, he said they are aware of the challenge but they won’t be bogged down by that.

Bangladesh in fact got the taste of how dangerous the Afghans bowling could be when they suffered a 2-1 defeat in three-match series at their own den against Rashid Khan and Co. two months ago.
Afghanistan became the only second team to beat Bangladesh at their own backyard after England since 2015.

“Afghanistan bowling attack is one of the best in the world, so definitely it’s a challenge but we have played them recently and our players had some success. So, it all depends on the day that how we perform. So we are very much aware of the challenge that we face,” Hathurusingha said in a pre-match press conference at Lahore where they will take on the Afghans on Sunday, BSS reports.

“So this game is very important because of what happened in the last game against Sri Lanka. We know that it’s a must win game and we certainly didn’t play to our potential in last game, we didn’t represent ourselves well enough but we are confident enough to bring our game against Afghanistan tomorrow,” he said.

The failure of the top order, which was weakened due to the absence of Tamim Iqbal and Liton Das, in the game against Sri Lanka was instrumental in their defeat.

“Losing that much of experience at the top of the order is a big challenge for any team,” Hathurusingha said. “We can’t do anything when both of them are injured, so one is sick the other one is injured so we can’t do anything about it we back the players we have over here and they are certainly talented that’s why were picked.”

It is believed Afghanistan will have the edge over Bangladesh, considering they got much time to cope with the Pakistan’s hot temperature. In contrast Bangladesh had to play the match, coming straight from Sri Lanka. But according to Hathurusingha those should not impact on the performance as they are determined to win the match.

“We used to play in all Asian countries. Back home it was hot when we were training. So I don’t think it will have any impact on our performance,” he said.

But Hathurusingha didn’t hint on whether they would tinker with the playing XI.

“We have just arrived here. We haven’t seen the wicket. Definitely if the wicket condition is different then we will think about different combination.”