admin
Vusi Sibanda was trying to be as positive as possible in the nets as he was in the press conference yesterday ahead of the third ODI clash against Bangladesh today.The job ahead of Zimbabwe, as was reflected in his words, is to keep themselves afloat in the five-match ODI series by winning the third game.
“It’s pretty much [a do-or-die match], to be honest,” Sibanda said.
“We will look to win the game. It’s a one-off game in which we have to put in everything. The guys are still feeling positive. They are hungry to win. So hopefully the guys will come in tomorrow (today) and put on a good show. We have to stay in the series.”
Sibanda however said that they are feeling the pressure of playing in Bangladesh, as well as the difficulty of being away from home.
“It’s obviously difficult to play Bangladesh in their backyard. Their morale is quite high. We are quite far away from home, 25 guys against a whole nation.
“Having said that, we have played good cricket in the past. We will hopefully turn things around from the next game,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s appointment of psychologist Phil Jauncey for the last three ODIs and the exclusion of Al-Amin Hossain from the third ODI’s squad are the only changes in the home camp. They look to be no different than how they prepared for the first or second ODIs in Chittagong.
Captain Mashrafe Mortaza too is saying similar things as he did ahead of the first two matches. He thinks dew will be the spinners’ main challenge and that there is no room to be complacent.
He however insisted that the batting line-up may keep changing if the opening batsmen can provide another good start.
If they don’t, Mominul Haque will keep batting at No 3 and Shakib Al Hasan will revert to his old No 5 position.
“We want to give Shakib and Mushfiqur the most overs to bat,” Mashrafe said.
“They are our form players. If our opening pair goes long, we will keep that plan in hand. It will be beneficial for the team if Shakib gets to bat more overs. The same goes for Mushfiqur. It all depends on what the openers do.
“The batting order will remain the same. We just wanted him to get the maximum number of overs in the second game because the openers had played out 33 overs.
“Mominul remains our No. 3, and Shakib will bat at No. 5. If we don’t give our top batsmen the most overs to bat, the team misses out on runs. This is a worry. We obviously discuss it much ahead before we change the batting order and tell the batsman in question that his position will change.”
Mashrafe was quite clear that he wants to wrap up the five-match series in the third ODI itself.
He called the series win a “necessity” for Bangladesh who have had a poor year so far, particularly in ODIs.
He has called for more consistency after the middle-order collapsed, with the home side losing six wickets for 46 runs in 10.2 overs after the openers gave them 158 runs to start with.
“We really need to win this series, keeping the context of this year in mind,” Mashrafe said.
“We can take confidence to the World Cup. If we can win the series tomorrow, I wouldn’t just be happy because the series was won under my captaincy. It is a necessity,” – Cricinfo.
onlinemedia
derick.khumalo