With one step closer to the knockout stage in the World Cup, Bangladesh skipper Sakib al Hasan thinks the team should now make a desperate attempt to win against South Africa on Saturday.
Sakib is not interested to see their chance for the quarter-finals by calculating complicated run-rate stuffs, rather winning against South Africa is his thought of the moment.
‘We have to win against South Africa, I am not interested to look at the run-rate,’ he told reporters after a six-wicket victory over Netherlands on Monday.
The point has rightly come to his mind as Bangladesh’s low run-rate is not enough to qualify in the second round.
Sakib’s team is now one rung above England with six points in Group B, and if West Indies beat England on March 17 in Chennai and Ireland lose points against South Africa, Bangladesh have a confirmed chance.
Sakib said he would keep an eye on the match between West Indies and England but his ultimate focus is on winning the next game.
Bangladesh has a run-rate of -0.765 mainly due to their 58 against West Indies, the fourth lowest score in the history of World Cup and worst ever in their history.
Slow wickets in Bangladesh are also detrimental to bigger scores as Bangladesh coach Jamie Siddons pointed out He said the other day that wickets in India and Sri Lanka are behaving in way that scoring 300 or more is easier than it is in Bangladesh.
Sakib said: ‘We didn’t put up big totals on the board in this tournament, so it is not depending on the run-rate.’
‘If West Indies beat England then we need not to take the load against South Africa, otherwise I don’t think we can cover with the run-rate.’
‘If we win the next match we can qualify for the second round, it is as simple as that so we are not thinking about run-rate,’ said Sakib.
Sakib said he wanted to take confidence from two back-to-back wins when they face South Africa.
‘Definitely we are confident that we can beat them if we can play to our potential,’ said Sakib.
Winning the two matches in a span of three days ‘will help to boost our confidence level, said Sakib.
‘We won one match through hard labour while one match was pretty easy one, and it taught us a lot of lessons.’
The No. 1 all-rounder in the world stage also praised opener Imrul Kayes for playing such a sensible knock of unberaten73 runs in a low and slow wicket.
Imrul was rightly announced for the man-of-the-match title for his match-winning performance on Monday, just three days after he did the same thing against England. He earned the title against England by scoring 60 runs that helped them pass England’s 225 runs.
‘Imrul[Kayes] played very sensibly and I am happy that he carried it till the end,’ said Sakib.
‘These are the improvement that we are making match by match and hope it continues,’ said Sakib.
He also backed the decision of the team manangement for playing Sohrawardi Shuvo in place of Naeem Islam because most of the batsmen in Holland teams were right-handers.
‘We thought he [Sohrawardi] would be a better option as they were mostly right-handed, we thought he would be able to restrict them,’ said Sakib.
‘We should select the team seeing their team as well as try to put up our best combination,’ said Sakib .
Courtesy of New Age
