Mushfiqur looking at the brighter side
Not much has gone right for Bangladesh on their tour of South Africa so far. A month before the tour started, if you told skipper Mushfiqur Rahim that Shakib Al Hasan would not be there for the Test leg, that both openers would have injury scares before the first Test, that Tamim Iqbal would recover only to reinjure himself during the Test (which they lost by the small matter of 333 runs) and be ruled out of the second, the skipper would probably have shredded his passport.
Maybe he had travelled the full cycle of despair and come out with renewed optimism, but an unusually chipper skipper took the chair to answer questions from the media on the eve of the first Test starting today at Bloemfontein's Mangaung Oval. He sounded out an optimistic note, and pointed out a few ways to correct the errors that plagued them in the first Test – namely impatient batting and toothless bowling.
The first Test was played on a pitch so flat that Sabbir Rahman described it as a 'Chittagong wicket', but that ended with Bangladesh being bowled out for 90. Having thus wasted a gift of a placid pitch, they are now faced with one that has a bit of green on it and promises lots of bounce.
"This is like a wicket that they have in their home conditions," said Mushfiqur during the pre-match press conference. "We expected this kind of wicket in South Africa. Even though the first Test wicket was similar to ours, we could not execute and play well. That does not mean that we cannot play well on a tough wicket. This is another opportunity. Even if these are tough conditions, we have played here before [in 2008]. But we will try to correct our mistakes, and hopefully play a good Test match."
Mushfiqur was under no illusions about the difficulty the absence of their two stalwarts places them in.
"It is a major setback to not have your two best players. We really needed them here," said Mushfiqur, before seeming to draw some inspiration from a bit of trivia when asked whether it was possible to gain something from this match.
"If I am not mistaken, the last time we played without them against Sri Lanka in Galle, we managed to draw the match," said Mushfiqur, recalling the 2013 match where Bangladesh achieved their highest Test score and the captain became the country's first double-centurion. "That too was not very easy for us and Sri Lanka were a much better team than than they are now. I am not saying that we will play very well, or very badly, but there is an opportunity for other players to put their hands up.
"We have to look after our processes. I said before the first Test that we have to play well session by session. If we lose six or seven wickets in a session, it is tough to turn around from that. We have to make sure that even if a session goes badly, we don't lose more than two or three wickets. While bowling, instead of conceding 200 or 300 for one we have to ensure that we can take five or six wickets."
A downcast Mushfiqur had blamed his bowlers after the Potchefstroom defeat, saying at one point that even he could come in and bowl a few deliveries in good areas. But he seemed to have softened his stance yesterday. "It is only natural for people to talk if you've done badly. I am not worried about the outcome; I think about the process. They should do the same -- give their best every ball.
"Not just our bowling, our batting unit collapsed in a big way in the second innings. I haven't seen one on such a scale in recent years. It was a warning for us."
Bangladesh will field a brand new opening combination today, the out-of-form Imrul Kayes and the fit-again Soumya Sarkar. Mushfiqur was optimistic about their chances as well. "Starting every innings is tough but we expect them to give us a good start. I have a lot of confidence in them [Soumya and Imrul] to return among the runs. They can take a step forward if they can score runs in this game, particularly in the absence of Tamim."
Comments