Bangladesh upbeat ahead of Champions Trophy
DUBLIN: Bangladesh still have two more warm-up matches before their Champions Trophy opener but captain Mashrafe Mortaza admits their five-wicket victory over New Zealand sends them to England with confidence high.
“The warm-up games will be important, wickets will be different from here but we will learn something from the games against Pakistan and India, so they are two big games,” said Mortaza.
“We missed out in the first game against Ireland and the first game against New Zealand was tough but we did really well in last two games and confidence is high at the moment.”
“Mahmudullah is very experienced,” said his captain.
“You can’t buy experience and in our batting side we also have Tamim and Shakib, who is not in the best mood but I’m sure he will come back and Mushy and Mahmudullah are also in the runs so hopefully we can go on from here.”
Manwhile, Bangladesh moved to sixth place in the ICC ODI Team Rankings for the first time following their five-wicket victory over New Zealand on Wednesday.
The first away victory against the Black Caps has put Bangladesh at par with Sri Lanka on 93 points, but when the ratings are calculated beyond the decimal point, Bangladesh are ranked above Sri Lanka as they have 93.3 points as compared to Sri Lanka?s 92.8.
This is the first time Bangladesh have been ranked ahead of three former world champions Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the West Indies and Zimbabwe.
This timely boost in ranking will further provide impetus to the young Bangladesh side which will go head to head with England in the Champions Trophy opener on June 1 as the sixth-ranked side and ahead of two former world champions in the fray --- Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Bangladesh now lead eighthranked Pakistan by five points, while they are ahead of ninthranked West Indies by 14 points. With September 30, 2017 being the cut-off date for direct qualification for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, Bangladesh are in a strong position to be one of the seven automatic qualifiers apart from hosts England to make the pinnacle event.