Mashrafe praises team for ‘fearless’ game

DHAKA: Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza has hailed his players for playing “fearless cricket” which he believes was the chief reason behind the team’s run of success in One-day Internationals.
“I think the boys are playing fearless cricket,” Mashrafe said after sealing a historic ODI series win against India on Sunday night.
“This is the significant change. The boys are not scared to play shots. They are not scared to put the slips on so I think that sort of cricket has changed. Cricket is all about mind games. I think we are all playing good cricket at the moment, especially with our head in the right place.
“I have always wanted to play attacking cricket. In Tests, you can do it more. I believe that when you hit a boundary, you are still not set. When you take a single with a four, you are set. So the thing that I wanted to tell the bowlers is that when I didn’t move the fielders they were taking a few calculative risks. Luckily we survived and on maximum days our plan is to play aggressive cricket.”
Mashrafe hailed his team’s first ever ODI series win over India as one of Bangladesh’s biggest achievements. He said that the ease of the two wins was unexpected but his gumption to play till the last ball had been spread throughout the team. He did, however, feel the team had gotten a little lucky and that they had areas to improve upon, unlike the 3-0 win over Pakistan which he called “near perfect”.
“This is one of the biggest achievements. Actually I think the boys are really confident. Maybe we didn’t expect (to win) that way. But we always thought that we are going to play to win and fight till the last ball. Obviously I know that if we play our best cricket, it will be competitive. But we can win as well. I will say that a lot of luck was involved.
“If you win matches it doesn’t mean that you have won perfect matches. I will say we played perfect cricket against Pakistan. Here there was rain and a partnership but we came back. If you win a match you are always there, but you can always improve in certain areas.”
Mashrafe believes the current team is consistent, which is the biggest difference from previous Bangladesh sides.
“Our biggest problem was the consistency,” he said. “If you are going with a single person, or team, that was our problem. At the moment things are going for us. I hope it will continue. In cricket, momentum is very important so hopefully the boys will keep it up.
“There were a lot of challenges in the last 15 years. Now there is not much pressure for that. A lot of pressure was there in 2014 on us. I think it’s a good pressure. When you win everything comes out well. Hopefully the boys will continue to deliver better results.”