McKenzie: Bangladesh want to play positive cricket with no fear

Bangladesh batting coach Neil McKenzie said the Tigers want to play brave and positive cricket, although recent performances have not been impressive in the last few matches across all formats.

Bangladesh avoided defeat narrowly by three wickets in their first T20I of the tri-nation seriers against Zimbabwe Friday, riding on Afif Hossain and Mosaddek Hossain’s 82-run face-saving partnership.     

McKenzie praised Afif and Mosaddek’s effort, informing that the team management wants to give freedom to the players to play freely, and said their aim is play brave cricket.  

“Very happy that Afif came back strongly after a year. With Saikat (Mosaddek), he really showed a matured innings and played with freedom. There is a lot of attention in Bangladesh, like many other big countries, and they are very passionate about their cricket. The guys have a lot of pressure on themselves and took off the pressure from themselves last match, and really played with no fear. That’s why we want to take our cricket forward, to play brave cricket,” said  McKenzie after training at Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium Saturday.

Afif Hossain said he was given the permission to play his own game and that’s what he tried to do in this game even when @BCBtigers were struggling.https://t.co/7ZUtO8dQfC#BCBTIGERS #BCB #TIGERS #BANGLADESHCRICKET #BANGLADESH #CRICKET #AFIFHOSSAIN #AFIF #HOSSAIN #ZIMBABWE #ZC

— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) September 13, 2019

Bangladesh batsmen are facing a tough time as they lost to Afghanistan in the lone Test match, and also suffered a defeat in the practice match a few days ago. 

At one stage, they were 60 for the loss of six wickets against Zimbabwe and got cornered while chasing 144. 

But McKenzie believes everyone should trust the players and give them support.   

“I believe in every match we have chance to win with the talent we have got. I think sometimes our worst enemy is Bangladesh. Because we put too much pressure on ourselves. We have to trust our players, that should be come from the spectators and media as well.  Players are not machines, they are humans. We just need to get behind our team and back our team. Even if we lose [today], we will win the next game. We don’t come out to lose. Bangladesh come out to play 100% positive cricket with no fear,” said McKenzie.  

“I think international cricket is hard cricket. You can’t always score and you can see Shakib [al Hasan]. He was magnificent in the World Cup. There are lot of guys who played really well in the last six months in international cricket. As soon as they don’t score in one or two games, everybody gets excited and upset, whatever. International cricket is hard cricket and best in the world has also failed. But we have to keep faith on the talented bunch of cricketers. I saw the A team, which are going to Sri Lanka, and there are lot of talented players there.  Bangladesh got a lot of talented cricketers and we need patience and we need trust and we need belief,” he concluded.