Bangladesh captain Nazmul Hossain Shanto has full faith on his side going into the Twenty20 World Cup, despite a series of dismal performances ahead of the major tournament.
Followed by a shocking 2-1 series loss to co-hosts USA, Bangladesh displayed dreadful performance with the bat at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York Saturday against India in their final warm-up match.
Before travelling to the United States, Bangladesh played a five-match T20 International series against Zimbabwe at home.
Bangladesh won the series 4-1, losing the last game by eight wickets.
Last Saturday, Bangladesh conceded a 60-run defeat to former T20 world champions India chasing 183 runs.
Veteran middle-order batter Mahmudullah was the lone batter to put up some resistance against the India attack, scoring 40 off 28 balls.
The right-handed batter retired in the 19th over following which Bangladesh finished on 122/9 in 20 overs.
Suffering of the top-order continued for Bangladesh as Soumya Sarkar and skipper Shanto perished for nought while Liton Das was able to add only six runs to the board.
“The bowlers did a good job. The way Shoriful [Islam] and Rishad [Hossain] bowled, we are happy. We did not do well with the batting though but I hope we will do well in the main tournament,” said Shanto.
Shanto pressed that there is not much to worry about the recent results and is confident that his team will play to their potential in the world event.
Bangladesh will begin their campaign against former T20 world champions Sri Lanka in Dallas next Saturday at 6:30am Bangladesh Time.
“We are not thinking about what has happened before [so far]. We know how capable we are, we have to be brave and execute our plans,” said Shanto to the media following the defeat against India.
Bangladesh are placed in Group D with South Africa, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands and Nepal.
The top two teams from each group will move to the Super Eight of the 20-nation tournament.
