On the road to the World Cup

Sportspeople like to say that their focus is only on the game at hand or the next game, but with the 2019 World Cup in England less than six months away, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza's words and decisions strongly hinted that the Bangladesh skipper has one eye on cricket's greatest prize.

In the first ODI against West Indies, which the hosts won by five wickets on Sunday, the Bangladesh eleven had four batsman who usually open the innings. Tamim Iqbal and Liton Das opened the innings, Imrul Kayes -- who hit two centuries and a 90 in the preceding ODI series against Zimbabwe -- came in at number three while Soumya Sarkar, who returned to national reckoning through good domestic performances and hit a century from number three in the third match against Zimbabwe, batted at number six.

While Mashrafe denied that the inclusion of four openers was experimentation, he stressed on the value of flexibility.

"Soumya likes playing pace more than spin. Usually openers are more at home against pace," Mashrafe said after the match. "In the World Cup he will be facing the pacers when he bats in the position he is currently in."

Soumya has taken the place of Mohammad Mithun, who had impressed in the Asia Cup with two fifties but with a maximum of 10 ODIs to go before Bangladesh take on South Africa in their opening World Cup match, honing the best eleven now seems to be the priority.

"There is no scope to belittle Mithun because of the kind of innings he played in the Asia Cup and also against Zimbabwe. The biggest thing for us is to find a stable combination. Even though we are playing four openers, there are one or two among them who can bat elsewhere -- Liton has played quite a few matches at six in Tests. This ability increases the flexibility of the side. Mithun is also there -- we want to keep him in such a way that he can return to his former position. I think the 16 [players] that we have now are more or less settled."

With that in mind, there may or may not be some changes to the batting order in today's second ODI, and the World Cup focus imbues these two matches with greater importance. Under the spotlight will be Imrul Kayes, who despite doing well in the Zimbabwe ODIs has lost form in the Tests against West Indies and was thoroughly beaten by the pace of Oshane Thomas in the first ODI.

With the three ODIs in New Zealand in February next year expected to be the ideal primer for conditions in England, one can expect the performances in the next two matches -- the last at home before the World Cup -- to rise steeply in value.