Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor said on Monday that he believes Bangladesh are tough at home and will have a point to prove when they face New Zealand next month.
‘I know Bangladesh are a fantastic team at home and for the upcoming tour against New Zealand, I’m sure that they’ve got a good record against New Zealand at home,’ Taylor said.
‘So it’s going to be tough for [New Zealand] and I know Bangladesh have got the cricketers, players and ability to be successful at the highest level.’
Taylor, who is currently playing for Prime Bank Cricket Club in the Dhaka Premier League, also reflected on Zimbabwe’s landmark Test victory over Pakistan earlier this month, which was the side’s first Test win against a team other than Bangladesh since 2001.
‘It was a pretty amazing experience. Probably the best two weeks of my life considering I’d become a father and one of the best wins certainly of our careers,’ he said.
‘Zimbabwe cricket’s been through a tough period over the last six months or so and the way the players came out and put their hands up to win that Test match was truly inspiring.
‘It shows we’ve got a lot of talent and we’re heading in the right direction.’
Taylor sees the result as the culmination of a lot of effort and preparation, dating back to Zimbabwe’s six-year absence from Test cricket, which ended in 2011.
‘We fortunately played a lot of One-Day cricket and that kept us going. Then we got our first-class structure in place and we got competitive players, we got players from all over the world to come play in our four-day competition and that really made it very strong,’ he said.
‘We did that for two, three years and when we came back to Test cricket we felt we were ready to compete.’
‘I didn’t expect to beat Pakistan so soon with the quality players that they do have, but we’ve really trained hard and we’ve really given it our best trying to be successful. Beating Bangladesh in our comeback Test match [in August 2011] gave us some belief that we deserved to be in Test cricket.
‘We’ve still got a long way to go and we can all improve a great deal, but I think this win against Pakistan will certainly give us that belief that we can compete against the best teams in the world and hopefully keep getting better as a team.’
Taylor also thinks that the result was another indication that weaker teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are capable of beating cricket’s traditional powers and provides them with an argument to be given more Test fixtures.
‘Absolutely [Bangladesh can beat strong teams]. Bangladesh have, especially in One-Day cricket, beaten all the top teams in the world, and when they play their best cricket they certainly can beat anyone,’ he said.
‘I’m sure they just need to have that belief in them and, like I said, when they play at home they certainly are very threatening. I’m sure they’ll have a point to prove against New Zealand.’
‘We’re all crying out for more Test cricket, and hopefully we can get that. With little Test cricket, it’s hard to progress, so the more we play, the more we play around the world, the more we play abroad, it’s certainly going to help us develop.
‘Hopefully the ICC can get something in place for us and we can all benefit from it,’ he added.
-With New Age input
