Batsmen intimidated by pace and bounce
Bangladesh A coach Corey Richards has said that his side was 'mentally intimidated' by the 'tall West Indian High Performance bowlers' against whom the second-string Bangladesh side crashed to an 'embarrassing' 351-run defeat within three days in the first four-day match.
He further described the result as a warning for the national team, which will be touring the West Indies later in August.
“I thought the pitch was fine and (it was) really good conditions to play cricket but at the end we were just not good enough. They intimidated us with the ball, they got some tall bowlers who bowled in the 140s and were quick and short. We were not good enough to handle it.
“The top six of our team have made one Test hundred each in international cricket. For them to be intimidated and play the way they did, that was quite embarrassing. These players have to play for a long period and if they can't adapt to different conditions then they won't last long,” said Richards when speaking about the dismal performance that saw the second-string side get bowled out for 140 and 152.
“It's a warning absolutely, because most of these guys will be coming back here in August. Hopefully this was just a one-off but at the end of the day if the players are not prepared to bat through long periods, the same thing will happen to us in the second game,” he added.
Rather than unfamiliar conditions, Richards thought that work needed to be done upon the players' 'mental strength', shortcomings in which have its roots in the domestic setup.
“We practised well both here and back in Dhaka. We had a lot of grass on the practice pitches and over here we instructed the ball boys to bowl short. We did everything we could to prepare,
“It's time to look at things differently in the domestic cricket setup. Anyone can get hundreds on flat wickets but when you're put up against good international cricketers, it's a different game,” said Richards.
Amongst the regular national players the A team includes Nasir Hossain, Mominul Haque, Imrul Kayes, Shamsur Rahman, Naeem Islam and Robiul Islam. The second-string side will play another four-day game against the High Performance team after which they will play three 50-over games against the same opponents.
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