Tigers can't hide gloom behind the masks

The morale of the Bangladesh cricket team ahead of the Sri Lanka game can be easily judged from the body language in the first training session in Delhi on Saturday as there was hardly any enthusiasm among the players at the outer nets of the Arun Jaitley stadium.

Like the gloom in the Indian capital emanating from air pollution which forced cancellation of the first scheduled training session on Friday, the atmosphere in the Bangladesh camp was gloomy. The wounded Tigers silently sweated it out with their masks on, hoping for a victory after six consecutive defeats in seven games.

Sri Lanka, too, cancelled their first scheduled training due to the inclement weather conditions on Saturday. 

Apart from Liton Das, who joined the team after a one-day trip to Bangladesh, and pacer Mustafizur Rahman, all the other members of the team were present during the training session.But the Tigers never looked like a unit at all. 

Shakib Al Hasan was the quietest of them all. The Bangladesh skipper batted for nearly an hour against pacers and spinners without even uttering a single word. 

Most of the other players seemed mentally down except for Mehedi Hasan Miraz and Mahmudullah Riyad, those two trying their best to uplift the mood of the teammates.

Head coach Chandika Hathurusingha's enthusiasm was far less compared to the other days as the Sri Lankan kept his emotions well hidden behind the mask.

With two more games to go, the Tigers will need to find some motivation from somewhere so that they can take at least some positives from this disastrous World Cup campaign.