Tigers won’t let history discourage them

Bangladesh

Bangladesh coach Chandika Hathurusingha feels that South Africa's excellent record against the Tigers will count for nothing in the upcoming limited-overs series, and that history is meant to be challenged.

The Tigers have been in excellent ODI form in recent months, whitewashing Pakistan and also beating India in the most recent series they played, which was an incredible feat. They also reached the World Cup quarter finals.

South Africa's XI thrashed the home XI in a warm up on Friday, seemingly a bad omen, but the coach is not allowing negativity to seep in, saying his players could certainly cause an upset against the Proteas. Bangladesh have beated SA just once in 24 ODIs, though.

They start with a T20 series on Sunday, with Hathurusingha saying: "If I believe in history, I won't be here today. I don't believe in history. History is there to change.

"It is how we go about doing it, is key. We are not part of history. We are part of present and what we do now.

"I can't do much about what the players read. I can only tell about it to players, what we can do now and what our strength is. I constantly tell them how good they are and what they can do."

He added of the team selection, especially the bowlers, for the T20s: "These two matches have a lot to do with the World T20 in mind. We are thinking about our combination and game plan, what's going to be effective for us. This will be our focus for this series.

"Lately we have been balanced in spin and pace. Traditionally Bangladesh is known to have lot of good spinners and it is not too different now.

"We don't have a lot of fast bowlers but they bring different quality to the team. Some are tall, some have variation, some can swing the ball. This is our advantage: we can go either way.

"South Africa have good quick bowlers, a good batting side and lately they play spin well too. They are a very competent side. We can't find any major weakness in their armory so we have to play consistent cricket and make good decisions in the middle."

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