Chandika Hathurusingha is prepared to face the challenge from the demoralised Zimbabwe side and believes a good result here will lay the platform for a smooth Twenty20 venture ahead. Bangladesh haven’t enjoyed the shortest format as much as the ODIs and the four-match T20 series starting tomorrow might just be the right place to start from.
Zimbabwe, who lost three ODIs and drew 1-1 in the T20 series in Bangladesh last November, arrived on Tuesday with bitter experience from Dubai where they lost their place in the top 10 ODI rankings to Afghanistan. However, despite losing the T20 series to the Afghans, Zimbabwe coach Dav Whatmore is still optimistic of his side’s chances against the Tigers.
Chandika assured that all possible remedies are being tried to prepare the team in the best possible way. “The boys will play for wins and have prepared hard for that. Out aim will be to hold onto the good performance both with the bat and the ball,” he said.
Meanwhile, the visitors held their first training session in Khulna yesterday. Former Bangladesh mentor Whatmore is keen to see his charges turn around from the humiliating defeats to Afghanistan.
“We couldn’t perform against Afghanistan but to be honest there were some positives in between all the negatives. We have rearranged the team before we came to Dhaka,” said Whatmore. “We are trying everything possible to bounce back. Our last tour highlighted our weaknesses and all possible measures have been taken to cure it.
“We will try overcome those weaknesses in this series against Bangladesh. Bangladesh is improving everyday and their players are highly confident. They have a sharp spin attack which is good enough to destroy the opponent batting. So we tried to take all the possible facts into consideration while chalking out the team,” Whatmore added.
