ICC Cricket World Cup 2019: Steve Rhodes Is Happy With The Present Depth In Bangladesh Team
May 29, 2019 at 7:17 PM
Bangladesh head coach Steve Rhodes is pleased to see the depth of present Bangladesh national cricket team. He is happy to see that Bangladesh team is not depended anymore on big five players.
Recently, Mashrafe Mortaza-led Bangladesh national cricket team claimed their first victory in a multi-nation international tournament. In the ODI tri-series in Ireland, where Ireland, Bangladesh and Windies participated, Bangladesh won that tournament without losing any match. Bangladesh won three games and also had one no result during the round-robin stage. Later in the rain-interrupted final, Bangladesh beat Windies by five wickets.
In the final of that tri-series, Bangladesh had to chase the challenging revised-target of 210 runs in 24 overs. The openers Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar provided a firing start with the 59 runs partnership in just 5.3 overs. While Tamim scored 18 runs (13 balls), Soumya played an impressive innings of 66 runs (41 balls).
However, in the middle stage, Bangladesh came under pressure due to losing their wickets regularly. In the late moment, Mosaddek Hossain played a firing knock to secure that incredible victory. The 23-year-old slammed an ODI half-century in just 23 balls and remained not out on 52 runs off 27 balls.
Steve Rhodes about the depth of Bangladesh national cricket team
Steve Rhodes feels that Bangladesh is now a stronger side who doesn’t depend only on a few players.
Rhodes recently told according to icc-cricket.com, “There have been two or three guys who have played special innings. If you think of Mosaddek, for example, he is a guy now who is going to keep everybody on their toes. That’s the depth of the squad and he might not play, and if he doesn’t, then what a great position we have. It gives us the confidence that we can win some big games as well.
“That means Bangladesh are stronger within the squad, and that’s what we want as we want more depth, and if we get that depth, then people will stop talking about the big five.”
That competitive ODI tri-series victory was the ideal preparation for Bangladesh ahead of the upcoming Cricket World Cup.
Steve Rhodes spoke about Soumya Sarkar’s present batting form
Soumya Sarkar was the most consistent batsman for Bangladesh in that series. The 26-year-old left-handed batsman scored 193 runs in three innings during that series. In all those three innings, Soumya hit half-centuries.
Rhodes is very happy with Soumya Sarkar’s present batting form.
The Bangladesh head coach said, “He has been a revelation since he hit that hundred and double-hundred in the DPL [Dhaka Premier League, Bangladesh’s premier List A competition], but he also gets some rough days from people.
“So it’s just nice to see him carrying on that form, and I hope people would get off his back a little bit because he is a wonderful player. We support him and back him. But not everyone always does that.”
England and Wales are getting ready to host the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup from 30th May to 14th July. A total of ten teams will participate in this tournament, including Bangladesh. Bangladesh will play their first match of this tournament on 2nd June when they will face South Africa at The Oval (London).
Ahead of the Cricket World Cup, Bangladesh will play two warm-up matches. Their first warm-up match will be against Pakistan at Cardiff (26th May), and their last warm-up game will be against India at Cardiff (28th May).