Free of fear and flying high
No fear. It’s easily said by a cricket coach, but another matter to have your side believe it.
Bangladesh, who were the laughing stock of world cricket midway through last year, now fear no one, according to their coach Chandika Hathurusinghe, the former Sri Lanka opening batsman.
That much was obvious on Monday when they tore through awful England in Adelaide to send them tumbling out of the Cricket World Cup, booking their own quarterfinal spot for the first time. On Friday they face the Black Caps in Hamilton, then comes the biggest game of their lives, probably against unbeaten India in the quarters in Melbourne next week.
‘‘We were not afraid to fail. That is the key word that we spoke about. I think we [previously] were paralysed by failure, we were not pushing ourselves,’’ Haturusinghe said.
‘‘We talked about that throughout this World Cup. For us, it’s a freedom to do things and believing in ourselves is the key for not only the England game but for every other game.
‘‘Even when Scotland put up 300, we were still backing ourselves to do things.’’
Upsets away from home haven’t been foreign to the Bangladeshis, who famously toppled Australia in Cardiff in 2005 and India at the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean.
But as recently as last year it seemed the players from the cricket-mad nation of 150 million were afraid of their own shadows. The progress made under nowWellington coach Jamie Siddons had gone into reverse. In their first 13 ODIs of 2014 they lost 12, including one to Afghanistan, and the other was a no-result.
Hathurusinghe, who was appointed to replace Shane Jurgensen in May last year, appears to have the Midas touch. He speaks in calm, measured tones. He was assistant coach to Trevor Bayliss in the New South Wales Sheffield Shield-winning team of last season and came highly respected for his coaching nous in Sri Lanka.
Batting giant Kumar Sangakkara said in 2010 that Hathurusinghe’s ‘‘technical and strategic knowledge was second to none of the foreign coaches I have worked with before’’.
Now it’s about consistency overseas. They haven’t won in New Zealand in 12 internationals over the three formats, but Monday’s victory wasn’t lost on Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum.
‘‘They don’t always get performances on the board travelling but we’re starting to see their skill sets. What we saw with Rubel and co as quick bowlers [against England] is a lot more dangerous than it was a few years ago.’’