Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons is hopeful that Mehidy Hasan will be fit to provide an all-round boost to the team in their must-win game against Afghanistan in the ongoing tri-nation series in Sharjah on October 21.
Mehidy missed Bangladesh’s opening game against Zimbabwe, which they lost by 99 runs, after being laid low by fever. Bangladesh suffered another setback ahead of the tournament when regular captain Litton Das was ruled out of the ODI tri-nation series after failing a fitness test ahead of the Zimbabwe game.
Mehidy stepped out of his hotel room for the first time since the Test series against Afghanistan and attended a practice session in Abu Dhabi on Monday (October 19). “Yeah, it’s great to see him as he had been in bed for the last couple days struggling,” Simmons said.
“He’s still not fully there but hopefully with today and tomorrow he can get some more rest and be ready for the next game,” he added.
Simmons, meanwhile, is not dwelling on the defeat to Zimbabwe, describing it as a bad day at the office. “The energy is still good. We had a nice meeting this morning and put things on the table like what we did and we didn’t do well and we know what we have to do now,” said Simmons.
“It’s not like we’ve been playing bad, we’ve been playing very good. We had a day where nothing really went well, so we know how to come back from that. So we’re going to work today and prepare ourselves mentally over the next couple days so we’ll be ready for that next game,” he said.
Reflecting on the batting collapse against Zimbabwe, Simmons said Bangladesh failed to assess the situation after getting off to a good start. “When we batted, we just lacked the understanding of the situation and knowing that with a start like that, we just had to make sure we bat for the 50 overs and we’d have won the game,” he said.
“So just a few little points here and there, but things that add up and you lose the game. So we know that that’s the small points we have to make sure that we take control of,” he added.
Hours after the defeat, Bangladesh Cricket Board president Tamim Iqbal held a lengthy meeting with the players and team management in the dressing room, which continued late into the night.
Reports suggested Tamim was unhappy with the team’s direction and expressed his displeasure in strong terms. Simmons, however, offered a different reading of the president’s message.
“The message [from Tamim] is to keep working hard, keep trying to make sure and understand that we’re representing Bangladesh and we’re representing how many millions of people and everybody’s looking for us to be successful and I think that was the main message from him,” he said.
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