Adaptability will be key for the junior Tigers: U19 head-coach
||CF Correspondent||
Bangladesh Under-19 head coach Naveed Nawaz said that adapting to different condition will play a crucial role for his charges as they prepare for the next Under-19 World Cup.
The newly-crowned Under-19 Asia Cup champions – India – edged past the Bangladesh U19s in the just-concluded continental tournament and according to Nawaz, it was a good learning curve for the boys.
“The learning process started with the Asia Cup because if you really look at the campaign. In the game of the Asia Cup we were debuting 10 players out of the 11,” Nawaz told reporters on Thursday.
“The campaign started there and I think we did reasonably well – coming into the semi-final and had a very close game against a strong Indian team,” he said.
The Towhid Hridoy-led team’s next assignment is to take on Sri Lanka in two five Youth Tests and five one-days. The series will start on October 16 and the reason behind arranging the matches so quickly after the end of the Asia Cup is to create adaptable players who can fit into the national team setup in future.
These two sides have already faced each other once at the group stage in the Asia Cup with the islanders coming out victorious in that contest. They eventually went on to become the runners-up of the tournament held in Bangladesh.
“This tour Sri Lanka is very important, we will be playing two unofficial Test matches to start with and then the five one-days. It’s all going to be so important and going to add to the experience of these new players,” said Nawaz.
“It is a bit tough to shift so soon like this. They finished the Asia Cup on the 8th [of this month] and we had a couple of days to adjust so we tried to get this practice game on the way – a two-day game that’s been affected by rain. But that’s no excuse because adaptability is the main skill of a cricketer.
“So I am assuming these boys are learning that they need to adapt. You play four-day cricket, one-day cricket, T20, whatever you play, you need to be adaptable. That’s the main skill I need these boys to learn and once they mentally adjust and become adaptable then they know the basics of each format and they just need to go there and do their best,” he added.
Despite starting on a positive note at the international levels, the Bangladesh under-19 team can have no room for complacency and will have to get done with the maximum preparation possible before the global showpiece event for them, which will take place in South Africa, in 2020.
The junior Tigers are likely to tour England and New Zealand and play a few home-series as well before making their final move to South Africa for the Under-19 World Cup. A third-place finish has so far been the best result for the Bangladesh U19s at the World Cup and this batch will undoubtedly like to exceed that.
“We’ve plenty of tours arranged up to the [Under-19] World Cup. We are going to play in England in August next year and then maybe New Zealand and before the World Cup we’ll be playing a couple of home series as well.
“Whenever we play out of our country, in England or Australia or New Zealand, we don’t play to our potential because of the different conditions. So the main idea is to tackle that. We have a year and three months before the World Cup, so our main idea is, once we establish the group of players how and how we can prepare them to handle the conditions,” said concluded.
