Rhodes insists on plugging loopholes despite a ‘special victory’
Photo - Cricfrenzy
|| CF Correspondent ||
Bangladesh head coach Steve Rhodes was elated with the way his charges grabbed Test and ODI series against West Indies but said they still need to do hard work to plug the loopholes, specially in the longer version format.
The hosts though seemed to win the both of the Test and ODI series with quite ease, they were not up to the mark in both of the format as they suffered batting collapse during the various point of the Test and ODI series.
Moreover the condition helped Bangladesh a bit, something which they shouldn’t expect on foreign soil.
“To beat them again in the ODI series was very special. We were disappointed we didn’t win the second ODI and wrap it up earlier, but having said that I thought that yesterday was a great game. Good cricket played by Bangladesh,” Rhodes said on Saturday at the team hotel in Sylhet as his side opt to take rest ahead of the T20 series.
“We still have an area of the game where we could better, which is encouraging, which was in the field. But the way bowled and the way that Tamim and Soumya and Liton set about chasing that score was a very special batting effort from those guys,” he said.
After praising his side for the stellar effort, Rhodes also reminded how the foreign condition could be. He specially put the example of Antigua where Bangladesh were shot out for 43 in the first innings, which was the lowest Test score in the last 44 years.
“We mustn’t underestimate how difficult that task was in Antigua when we first went there and lost the toss on a very helpful, juicy wicket for the West Indies,” he said.
Having reminded that, Rhodes emphasized on working hard and keep the complacency away always.
“I kept trying to put things in perspective in my hand. That was a very very tough start for our boys over there and me personally as a coach. On a side note they can play one-day cricket well. We are developing our Test cricket,” he added.
“We know the areas we need to improve with Test cricket. We are going in the right direction, we got a world cup getting closer and closer now. All the teams will be expected to do well. But all we can do is keep the form going. Beating West Indies in the one-day series, it helps us with our confidence and we know that we can beat some good teams.”
