New Zealand coach Mike Hesson believes that his team will not feel the weight of the Black Caps’ woeful last series in Bangladesh, he said ahead of their departure for Chittagong on Thursday.
Hesson, speaking at a press conference at the team hotel in Dhaka, dismissed the idea that this team of fresh faces would be expected to avenge the 4-0 whitewash New Zealand suffered at the hands of the Tigers in October 2010.
‘Psychological pressure? No. A lot of our players weren’t involved in that series. And that was a One-Day series; we’re planning for the Test series at the moment, so no,’ Hesson said.
The coach also rejected the idea that the tourists might view themselves as underdogs in light of their youth and their recent history in Bangladesh.
‘We don’t really operate on whether we’re underdogs or not. We know last time we came over here in the Test series, that was a tough fought Test series,’ he said.
‘We’re expecting nothing less than a tough series.’
Hesson thinks that his team will still be able to handle the conditions in Bangladesh, which are markedly more spin-friendly than those in New Zealand, despite the turnover in the team and their relative inexperience at the international level.
‘We’ve got players that have been playing with New Zealand A as well in the last two months, so they have some subcontinent experience in India and Sri Lanka. Obviously the Champions League [Twenty20] – a lot of guys have played over there. So we have a young side, but we still have enough experience there in that group to learn from and there will certainly be a lot of sharing of ideas over the coming weeks.
‘We spent nine days in Sri Lanka before we came here so we faced a lot of spin over there. We’re well aware of the spinners in Bangladesh; we’ve seen a lot of them and they’re all good bowlers,’ he said of his team’s readiness to face Bangladesh’s spin-heavy bowling attack.
‘We know we’re going to face some good left-armers; we know we’re going to face [Sohag] Gazi [and] a couple of off [spinners]. We know what we’re going to expect; nothing’s going to surprise us.
‘Obviously the spinners are going to take a lot of wickets during that time because they bowl 90% of the overs [here], but we’re certainly improving against spin and this will be a test for us,’ he added.
The coach also said he thinks his own attack can pose problems for Bangladesh, despite the absence of serial Tiger-killer Daniel Vettori.
‘Obviously we’re missing Dan Vettori, who’s been a huge part of our success over here in the subcontinent, but we’ve also got some very talented young bowlers who are going to challenge the Bangladesh batsmen. They’ve got the ability to swing the ball [and] reverse-swing the ball, and they’ll certainly create some challenges.’
The coach said that New Zealand’s chances of winning the series would rest on his team’s ability to strike with the new ball, the ability of their spinners to control the Bangladeshi batsmen, and their ability to handle the Bangladeshi spinners.
When asked about Bangladeshi players his camp would be paying particular attention to, Hesson identified the Tigers’ skipper as a particular threat.
‘Mushfiqur [Rahim] is a quality batsman; they sort of bat around him a lot and obviously he’s been in reasonable touch the last 12 months as well. He’s got a little bit of pressure on him and [is] certainly a guy we’ve got some pretty good plans against.’
-With New Age input
