DHAKA: Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza has placed faith in his World Cup first-timers, believing that if they can combine well with the senior players in the side, the team will be in a good position over the coming weeks.

Among the 15-member squad, four players, including Mashrafe, will play their third World Cup while two will play their second. The nine others will be at their first World Cup and interestingly, the same players will also be playing in Australia and New Zealand for the first time.

The nine have 121 ODI caps between them with Soumya Sarkar and Taijul Islam having made their ODI debut against Zimbabwe on December 1, Bangladesh's last international match before the World Cup. Taijul became the first player in ODIs to take a hat-trick on debut while Soumya managed 20. Nasir Hossain is the most experienced among the first-timers, having made his debut in the series that immediately followed the 2011 World Cup. Anamul Haque is a regular opener while Mominul Haque has a chance to transform his impressive Test numbers into the ODI format. Sabbir Rahman, who also made his debut in the ODI series against Zimbabwe, is most likely to compete with Nasir for the No.6 slot.

Among the bowlers, Arafat Sunny, Al-Amin Hossain and Taskin Ahmed have made good progress in limited-overs cricket over the past 12 months and will be deemed as reliable as the more experienced Mashrafe and Rubel Hossain.

"It can be very tough but I think our young players are very good," Mashrafe said. "They haven't played a lot of international cricket but they have some experience. So hopefully they will turn out very well. We have some experienced players like Mushfiqur [Rahim], Tamim [Iqbal] and Shakib [Al Hasan]. [Mahmudullah] Riyad and Nasir [Hossain] are there as well. If the big guns can step up and the young players can help them, we have a great chance."

Much of Bangladesh's chances will depend on Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal and the captain Mashrafe. Shakib, Tamim and Mushfiqur are three of Bangladesh's top four run-getters while Mashrafe is the country's joint second highest wicket-taker. Despite leaving out Abdur Razzak, Bangladesh have, what many believe, their best 15 players at the World Cup.

Bangladesh, placed in Group A, will have to beat at least two of the higher-ranked sides as well as the two Associates, if they are to make the quarterfinals. Mashrafe said that Bangladesh are not targeting a particular team but would like to see the team go past the group stages.



"To be honest, everyone expects us to go to the second round but it will tough. We have to beat at least two bigger teams as well as Afghanistan and Scotland. We are not used to these conditions but we are trying our best to adapt. We don't target anyone because it will put pressure on us. We will play it game by game and hopefully we will do well."

Mashrafe's hope, however, is built on a couple of practice matches against Cricket Australia XI in Brisbane last week, both of which Bangladesh lost. They have trained in Brisbane for a couple of weeks after they had nine days of training at home, apart from playing domestic one-day cricket following their last ODI on December 1. They are one of the only two teams to have not played a single ODI during this time.

The Bangladesh captain is now banking on the next two practice matches - against Pakistan and Ireland at Blacktown Olympic Park Oval - to get their preparation in tune for their World Cup opener against Afghanistan on February 18.

"We haven't played a lot of cricket in the last two months. But before that, we beat Zimbabwe 5-0 and we had a good time in domestic cricket. In the last two weeks we trained in Brisbane and played two practice matches. We also have two more practice matches here in Sydney, so we hopefully we will adapt and give our best shot in the World Cup."

Bangladesh, though, got a few things wrong during the practice games. In the first match on February 3, Mominul Haque was pulled out of the middle after he had reached 52. Bangladesh went on to bat for only 45.4 overs in the game.

"Our coach decided that [Mominul Haque will retire after scoring 50]. Everyone wants to bat, that's why it was decided that he will retire after reaching fifty. It was unlucky that we were bowled out in 45 overs. I think it doesn't look good. The World Cup has started now. We will take it very seriously. We will play it as normal matches."

Source: ESPN Cricinfo

BDST: 1551 HRS, FEB 08, 2015