Bangladesh skipper Shakib al Hasan feels their maiden T20I series win over Afghanistan will play as a huge confidence booster for them ahead of the Asia Cup.
“In most of the cases we are seeing our (T20I) players are featuring in the one-day player featuring and they can take this confidence forward,” Shakib told reporters following their six-wicket win in the second game of the series at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
After losing the ODIs by 2-1 margin the hosts came back strongly in the shortest format to sweep away the visitors in the two-match T20I series in Sylhet.
Shakib said that he is happy with the way things are going at the moment in the shortest format but added that they need to be more flexible.
Bangladesh promoted number seven Afif Hossain up in the order in the rain-marred second game of the two-match series at the jam-packed Sylhet venue.
Afif (24) responded well in his new position by putting up 67 runs in the opening partnership with Litton Kumar Das and laid the platform for the massive win against one of the best bowling attack in the world especially in the shorter format- their fourth bilateral series win in this shorter-version cricket.
Tigers previously clinched a 2-0 series win over UAE in Dubai last year before they beat England and Ireland respectively by 3-0 and 2-1 margin at their own back yard this year.
“If everyone can bat everywhere and can adapt in that case he won’t find it difficult to adapt when he is facing a tough situation. The same goes with the bowlers when they will bowl in different situation in that case he will not find it anything new. The five or six bowlers we have our job is to make things easy for batsmen and we always try that. Now with the combination we have we are seeing a healthy competition among pacers and spinners and this is a good thing for the team,” he added.
“Towhid Hridoy and other players are with us from the last World Cup. Most of the players in this team are here either from the World Cup or Asia Cup. Two to four players are coming and going but it’s a continuous process. But we are still far from getting our best combination,” he said adding that winning the series is a huge relief for Tigers as they didn’t had good result against Afghanistan in the T20Is.
“Of course, it’s a big relief when your plans work accordingly and players can also execute it on the field and we get results in our favour. What can be better than that?,” said Shakib.
“We didn’t have good results against them in this format. But after winning such a series in this type of condition, I think it will give us great confidence to do well in the coming day,” he further added.
“According to the condition the way we wanted to go forward I think we are doing a good job. But the challenge will be different in different condition and we have to adapt to it. Our job is to perform in the field and contribute for the team and play as a unit and we are trying to do that,” he concluded.
