Tigers' time to fine tune

Bangladesh will get one last chance to do some fine tuning before their ICC World Twenty20 challenges when they play Ireland today, the final day of warm-up games for the eight lightweights in the mega event.
The Tigers meet the Irish at the Fatullah Cricket Stadium where they scored a four-wicket victory against the UAE two days ago.
The win against the UAE came as some sort of relief for the Tigers since it ended their winless record this year. But the success was far from convincing. Another win today will definitely boost the morale of Mushfiqur Rahim's men ahead of their much-talked about March 16 clash against Afghanistan in the opening match at Mirpur.
The team management would desperately want to see the Tigers in a much better shape than the first game where the batting stumbled before scampering to a nervy win.  
Pacer Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, who had been ruled out of the Asia Cup due to side strain he had suffered during the match against India on February 26, is all but confirmed to play the opening game against Afghanistan.  But it's not confirmed if the 30-year-old paceman play today's practice match.  
It was learnt that the selectors were in favour of playing the country's leading paceman so that he can feature against the Afghans with some preparation. However, team physio has preferred to rest Mashrafe to avoid any risk.
“Right at this moment I can not comment whether Mashrafe play the last practice match or not but he is such a player who has nothing to prove,” said chief selector Faruque Ahmed.
“Practice match is practice match but still it is important for the boys to win it. It could have been fantastic for us if we could win the match (against UAE) convincingly but anyway it gave the boys much-needed confidence. Another win will be fine for us,” he added.
The focus will be definitely on struggling Nasir Hossain. It was refreshing for the team think-tank to see Mahmudullah Riyad showing some impressive all-round performance in the match against UAE besides opener Tamim Iqbal's bold return. But Nasir continued to struggle with his form.
In an open media session two days back Nasir claimed that he has no problem with his form but in reality he has not been among the runs for quite a while which has been a cause of concern for Bangladesh. The otherwise dependable late-order batsman, who is dubbed as finisher, was bowled out for 15 against UAE.
“He (Nasir) is a very important player for us, so it would be good for us if he get back his rhythm before the start of the tournament,” said Faruque.
Meanwhile, yesterday was a rest day for the Tigers, who spent a large part of their time visiting a home for orphanages at Mirpur.