One of our biggest achievements' – Mashrafe
The Bangladesh dressing
room was booming with loud bangs on the glass window from the viewing area. The
captain Mashrafe Mortaza was gesticulating about almost everything that was happening
in the middle.
The moment Sabbir Rahman took the winning single,
the players
moved away from the center quite calmly by usual Bangladesh-celebration
standards. But as soon as they had Mashrafe within earshot, it was his party.
Bangladesh immediately
got into one of those jumping and singing huddles, usually seen in European
football after big wins and characterised by chants of "Ole,Ole".
Here, the PA only played those songs that were promoting the series, somewhat
degrading to Bangladesh's stature compared to India.
Then came a round of
"Mauka mauka", but by this time, the celebrations had moved into the
dressing-room. Nasir Hossain tried his best to douse anyone within his reach
with a bottle of water. Exactly who poured water all over selector Habibul
Bashar was hard to spot.
Before the presentation
ceremony, Mashrafe found time to shake hands with all the groundsmen lined up
near the 30-yard circle. It was a gesture only Mashrafe could have come up
with. He had led Bangladesh superbly in the second ODI and should have been the
centre of attention. Instead, he was spreading it around.
Later in the press
conference, he thanked his team for being fearless in playing shots and asking
for aggressive fields with the ball in hand. He stressed the need to be
aggressive in ODI cricket, which he believes has given them the 10-match
winning streak at home either side of a successful World Cup campaign in
Australia and New Zealand.
"I think the boys
are playing fearless cricket," Mashrafe said. "This is the
significant change. The boys are not scared to play shots. They are not scared
to put the slips on so I think that sort of cricket has changed. Cricket is all
about mind games. I think we are all playing good cricket at the moment,
especially with our head in the right place."
"I have always
wanted to play attacking cricket. In Tests, you can do it more. I believe that
when you hit a boundary, you are still not set. When you take a single with a
four, you are set. So the thing that I wanted to tell the bowlers is that when
I didn't move the fielders they were taking a few calculative risks. Luckily we
survived and on maximum days our plan is to play aggressive cricket."
Mashrafe hailed his
team's first ever ODI series win over India as one of Bangladesh's biggest
achievements. He said that the ease of the two wins was unexpected but his
gumption to play till the last ball had been spread throughout the team. He
did, however, feel the team had gotten a little lucky and that they had areas
to improve upon, unlike the 3-0 win over Pakistan which he called "near
perfect".
"This is one of the
biggest achievements. Actually I think the boys are really confident. Maybe we
didn't expect (to win) that way. But we always thought that we are going to
play to win and fight till the last ball. Obviously I know that if we play our
best cricket, it will be competitive. But we can win as well. I will say that a
lot of luck was involved.
"If you win matches
it doesn't mean that you have won perfect matches. I will say we played perfect
cricket against Pakistan. Here there was rain and a partnership but we came
back. If you win a match you are always there, but you can always improve in
certain areas."
Mashrafe believes the
current team is consistent, which is the biggest difference from previous
Bangladesh sides.
"Our biggest problem
was the consistency," he said. "If you are going with a single
person, or team, that was our problem. At the moment things are going for us. I
hope it will continue. In cricket, momentum is very important so hopefully the
boys will keep it up.
thanks
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