Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha made it clear that he would rotate players as much as possible to find out the best combination for the team in the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 scheduled to be held in India, reports BSS.
The Tigers would play a three-match ODI series against Afghanistan, Asia Cup and then a three-match ODI series against New Zealand at home ahead of the cricket's biggest extravaganza to be held from October 5- November 19.
"We are trying to give some players game time. That doesn't mean they know and we know the supporting role, what we want to do, what areas we need to look forward to the players," Hathurusingha said in Chattogram today after Bangladesh's practice session.
"That means sometimes we won't have depth in case of an emergency close to the Asia Cup and World Cup. So keeping the reason in mind we want to give players a chance," he said.
He went on saying: "I don't think we have played a lot of cricket leading up to now. So, we have this series and the Asia Cup then a couple of practice games before the World Cup as well. So, we have a lot of crickets coming up. This is really an ideal preparation for us leading up to the Asia Cup and for the World Cup."
Amongst the three events, the Afghanistan series is set to start on Wednesday with Bangladesh eyeing to dominate it, despite knowing that the visitors would be a completely different side from the one that played a one-off Test last month here and lost a record 546-run margin.
"We love to do that. But it's a different format and different team as well. We will be very pleased to go with the Test match win, but this is totally a different game," the Sri Lanka born coach said.
In the ICC World Cup Super League, Afghanistan won 11 games out of 15 and so it is believed that they would pose a different challenge in this format. Bangladesh however have the upper-hand over the Afghans in ODI format too, winning seven out of 11 encounters between the two sides.
"They have been playing good cricket lately. They have a very good bowling unit. Their top four batters have established in the last couple of years as well. They are a pretty formidable team in the one-day format," Hathurusingha said.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
