Bangladesh skipper Mashrafee bin Murtaza said on Thursday that he wants his team-mates to return to the basics rather than focusing on result during the three-match one-day international series against South Africa that starts today at Mirpur. Mashrafee, who has been leading the team through a dream run and wiped off their perennial status of a minnow, especially in the ODI version, had revealed his plan to keep on the success.
The Tigers reached their first ever quarter final in the World Cup and followed the success with consecutive ODI series win against Pakistan and India but lost the last match of India series and conceded two Twenty20 matches against Proteas.
Those three losses not only broke the rhythm of Tigers but it also has awakened their self realisation of getting back to the basic, which was producing their desired results including 10 consecutive ODI victories at home.
‘We must think more on process rather than about win,’ said the skipper adding that ‘I think, if we can keep on playing through the right process, the way we did during and after World cup, we shall do well.’
Mashrafee admitted that the regular wins created some sort of complacency and the Tigers perhaps thought too much about winning even before taking the field and thus unable to play their natural game.
‘We have won almost every match since the World Cup. Regular win creates an inevitable addiction.
‘Everyone wants to win and that is our job. But if we just think on that we often forget to think about the process,’ said Mashrafee.
That is one reason the spirited captain thinks it is the high time for them to go back to the basics, and urged his team-mates to plan well and execute them.
‘I think if we can keep on the process by doing the basic things right, plan properly as a batsman and as a bowler, we will automatically get the success.’
Mashrafee also asked his colleagues to concentrate on the job in hand rather than paying too much attention on result, which he believes caused the recent failures.
‘If we just think about ‘win’ from the beginning our basic works deviate ‘off the mind’. ‘
Mashrafee saw the simpler side of the game as he said that the way of winning against the opponents is to stay ahead of them. However he admitted that it is easier to say than to be done.
He also reminded that only good performance can fetch victories not the thoughts about that, saying ‘When you win every game that is only because you have played well’.
However Mashrafee thinks that every time they take on the field they do it for winning, so they are not thinking about one win but about winning all the matches in the series.
The skipper believes that his team-mates should take the lesson from the past, when they fought hard to change their fate.
‘We must go back. We should restart from the position that we gained when we transformed our time from bad to good,’ indicating their barren time, when they were winless for a long time, but good cricket changed their fate.
-With New Age input
