Bangladesh pacer Taskin Ahmed said even after losing four out of five matches in the World Cup, his team could still qualify for the semifinals.
Ahead of Bangladesh’s engagement with the Netherlands at the Eden Gardens here on Saturday, Taskin said, “If we can win the (remaining) four (matches), anything can happen because there are run rate issues and also (instances of) teams like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka beating England... we are planning to go match by match.”
Taskin admitted Bangladesh’s batting and bowling were not up to the mark. “We are better than that... hoping to do well.”
The speedster clarified that skipper Shakib Al Hasan taking a break to train in Dhaka did not affect the team’s morale. “When he came back, we had a really good time. He went for some improvements as he has not batted well. We should appreciate that.”
Netherlands captain Scott Edwards said his side would try to benefit from inputs provided by its coach Ryan Cook, who worked with Bangladesh in the past. “He’s sort of spreading what he knows about this (Bangladesh) squad but there’s obviously some new players... we’ll take what information we can from him and try to apply that to the match. But first and foremost, we just have to make sure we execute our skills.”
Edwards said his team, which batted poorly against Australia in its last outing, would look to rectify its mistakes including its top-order batters’ performance. He underlined that despite the upset win over South Africa, his team is yet to hit its peak.
