Bangladesh captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz has said he does not take the weak New Zealand team lightly. His counterpart Tom Latham believes his less experienced players should stick to their domestic formula to succeed at this level.
Mehidy and Latham are at critical points in their respective ODI careers. Latham has a chance to regain a place in the middle order after being recently dropped; Mehidy has led Bangladesh to two consecutive ODI series victories, but his captaincy is still unknown.
“We cannot see New Zealand as a weak team,” Mehidy said on the eve of the series opener. “We will try our best to get the result in our favour. For professional cricketers, every match is important; the chance to gain ranking points also gives it a bit more importance. Winning the series against New Zealand would be a great achievement for us. I think the Bangladesh team is in good form. The last two wins in the series also showed that we are coming together well as a team.”
Latham said he will ask many of his players to focus on carrying their national plans into this three-match series. He said it wasn’t exactly a rookie team, as the players have played for New Zealand at least a few times.
“I think the goal for us is for everyone to bring their own skills. We have a model and a style that we like to play with, but we want the guys to come in and play the way they have for their national teams in New Zealand. “We know that if they do that then they will give themselves the best opportunity.
“Everyone in the whole team has played for New Zealand at some point, so they know what international cricket is all about, even if they haven’t played as many games as some of our other guys. We want them to come in, support each other and play the way they want,” he said.
Latham said New Zealand were aware that Bangladesh have both pace and spin as strengths in their bowling attack. He said he respects the bowling trio who were instrumental in the series against Pakistan last month, but remains cautious about what spin can do in these conditions.
“[Bangladesh’s seam attack] he has quite a bit of experience, especially in these conditions when you look at Taskin [Ahmed]Mustafizur [Rahman]and obviously [Nahid] Rana, who has made a name for himself in recent seasons. But we will be prepared for everything. Looking at the surface, it looks like a good surface, but we know that spin also plays a role in these conditions. “Bangladesh are playing great cricket at the moment so we will be challenged.”
Mehidy said his batting should react well to any type of wicket. “We are hoping to play this series on good pitches, like we did against Pakistan. It must also be kept in mind that both Pakistan and we were cheaply eliminated at least once in that series. I think it is more important how the players handle themselves on any type of pitch,” he said.