DHAKA, May 20, 2019 (BSS) – While the likes of Mosaddek Hossain Saikat and Soumya Sarkar were instrumental in Bangladesh’s maiden multinational trophy, it indicated the country is on the verge of seeing youngsters coming out of shadows of the senior five players-Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah Riyad.
The five players are popularly called a Fabulous Five of Fab Five, who were key in making Bangladesh a true giant in World Cricket.
But dependency on them was such that if they fail to put up any significant performance, Bangladesh looked vulnerable even against a minnows. So when Bangladesh won their major trophy without the contribution of those five players, head coach Steve Rhodes saw positivity in it.
“I think they are getting more and more confident about playing in the final. I have lost only final with Bangladesh in the Asia cup final and they lost the match in the last ball. This was quite an amazing chase because it was tough and there have been two or three guys who have played special innings today,” Rhodes said.
“If you think of Mosaddek for example, he is a guy now who is gonna keep everybody on his toes. That’s the depth of the squad and he might not play and if he doesn’t then what a great position we have some other good players playing, what it does give that it gives us the confidence that we can win some big games as well.”
“Soumya has been a revolution. Since he hit that hundred and double hundred in the DPL but he also gets some rough days from people because he is a type of guy when he is in form he is really hot. So, it’s just nice to see him carrying on that form and I hope people would get of his back a little bit because he is a wonderful player.”
Rhodes believed that Bangladesh are now stronger than any other time given the young players started contribution with the senior players. That brought up a positive vibe in the dressing ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup, the coach said.
“Bangladesh are stronger within the squad and that’s what we want. We want more depth. If we get that depth then people would stop talking about the big five. That means we will be stronger when we are missing few of them. Shakib didn’t play in the final but he had a fantastic tournament. He was excellent with bat, ball and fielding in this tournament, so to win without him in the final was a big effort.”
Rhodes however once again ruled out the fact that the bowling, especially Mustafizur’s inconsistency is area of concern of him.
“Certainly with the ball I am happy with the variety that we have got when you look at Mash (Mashrafe), Saifuddin and Fizz (Mustafizur) as seamers and these three are in particular are very different.
Spinners too have also done great out here, likes of Shakib and Miraz and now we have others come in like Rahi with five wickets, Rubel back to playing. So, we have plenty of depth in our bowling but also we have variety which is important.”