Bangla-desh coach Jamie Siddons said there should not be any serious expectation from his side in the five-match one-day series against New Zealand, although they had a long practice and two new specialised coaches.
Bangladesh players trained for nearly two months ahead of the series and during the course British fielding coach Julien Fountain and bowling coach Ian Pont joined the side.
But Siddons, speaking at a press conference on Monday, said that was not enough for them to upset New Zealand in the five-match series, beginning today at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.
‘The hard practice is basically for the World Cup and getting ready for this series and that’s the way we practise all the time,’ Siddons said. ‘We have got two new coaches, more space, but the training needs to go longer to give the coaches more time with the players.
‘I expect to see some improvement but we must remember one of the coaches is here for three weeks and one for four weeks maybe. We had breaks in between training, so it hadn’t been as hard as I would have liked,’ Siddons.
‘I wouldn’t expect to see a drastic improvement. We are stepping to climb up in a steady way and I would expect to continue that,’ said the Australian.
Siddons lamented the loss of Tamim Iqbal and also felt the absence of out-of-form Mohammad Ashraful, who had contributed with a fifty in Bangladesh’s previous win against New Zealand at home in 2008.
‘We are missing Tamim, that’s a big blow and Ash [Ashraful] is out of form. I would like to have both of them on form. We have high expectation of playing good cricket and we will see how we fare in the series,’ Siddons said.
Despite the loss of the duo, Siddons expected a positive body language from the players and hoped the replacement players to grab the opportunity to cement their places in the squad.
‘I expect the body language to be positive. Because Tamim is out, it gives opportunity to some one else. Shahriar Nafees gets the opportunity, obviously his body language should be good as he wants to play cricket. Roqibul only played one match in six months, so he will be eager to play,’ he said.
‘Everyone is keen for this series and everyone wants to play good cricket and we want to win some matches.
‘I think we are equally matched [at home and just like us] they have got two or three dangerous players and if we can hold them down little bit and not let them get away, then we have a chance to win,’ Siddons said.
‘We should have won the last series, we batted too slowly in the second game and we should have sealed the series by winning that game. We bowled them out cheaply and hopefully our spinners can do that again. I think teams like New Zealand have got good replacements but I am not sure about the quality of the replacements and their all-round capabilities.’
