DHAKA, May 10, 2022 (BSS)-Bangladesh batting coach Jamie Siddons said the
Tigers are upbeat to whitewash Sri Lanka in the upcoming two-match Test
series despite a poor track record in the longer version format.

Mominul Haque and co recently experienced batting collapse in second innings
of the both Tests against South, proving that they are yet to be matured
enough in the elite level of cricket. Their second innings collapse forced
them to pay heavily as they were finally whitewashed in two-match Test
series.

But Siddons said since they are playing at their own backyard, they are
unfazed by what happened in the past.

"Sri Lanka's batting and bowling are good, so we have to be on top of our
game to win the Test matches. Our goal is definitely to win both Tests at
home," Siddons said at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium today after Bangladesh's
practice session.

"We always want to win all of our home matches but reality is that it doesn't
always happen. We will play good cricket. We are confident against this side
in Chittagong. Our challenge is play five days of good hard cricket. See what
happens in the end."

Siddons who oversaw Bangladesh team as a head coach from 2008-2011 believes
they have some takeaways from South Africa tour, which gave them a fuel to be
confident against Sri Lanka.

"South Africa was a long tour. It was a successful tour in my opinion because
of the one-day team. Probably didn't play great Test cricket. We will have
good and bad days in cricket. We had couple of bad days that made us look
quite bad," Siddons said.

"I thought we played some really good cricket in those Tests. Taijul gets a
nine-for, Joy gets a great hundred, very early in his career. We had some
really great starts in the first innings, we didn't play great in the second
innings. The real focus is to make bigger first innings scores," he opined.

 He also said that most of the players got runs in the recently concluded
Dhaka Premier League (DPL), that gave them an additional confidence to do
well against Sri Lanka.

"Most of our players made runs in the Premier League. At least they were
batting, getting runs, getting confidence. We have got a really good 4-5 days
here now. We have two great days so far. We have worked on a few areas. We
have talked a lot about our batting. We have a lot of talking to do, still.
We still have three more good days of practice. That'll be more than enough
after South Africa," he said.