File photo of Shakib Al Hasan© AFP
On the eve of the T20 World Cup Super 12 match against India at the Adelaide Oval, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan on Tuesday said that his side are not here to win the tournament, and if they end up beating India, it would indeed be an upset. Both India and Bangladesh currently have 4 points in Group 2 and a win would further solidify their chances of making it to the semi-finals.
“Every match is important for us and we want to play with the same approach. We don’t want to focus on any single opposition. We just want to stick to our plans. We are not worried about the strike rates of our players in this World Cup. We are just focused on giving a complete team performance in all the departments of the game,” Shakib told reporters in a press conference.
“We want to play well in our remaining two games. If we are able to win against India or Pakistan, it would be an upset. Both the teams are better than us on paper, if we play well and if it is our day, there is no reason why we cannot win. We have seen teams like Ireland and Zimbabwe beating England and Pakistan. If we are able to do the same, I’ll be happy,” he added.
Further talking about the match against India, the Bangladesh captain said: “I think it will be a full house because India gets good support wherever they play. I think it will be a good game. India are the favourites heading into the match. They have come here to win the World Cup, we are not here to win the World Cup. You can understand the situation, if we win against India, it will be an upset and we will try our best to upset India.”
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India batter Suryakumar Yadav has been in superb form and he has registered two half-centuries so far. Shakib reserved some high praise for Suryakumar.
“He has been playing really well for them. I think he is probably their No.1 batter in terms of the record in the last year. They have few world-class players, we have not done our team meetings yet. We will talk about the areas we need to look after in the team meetings. If we want to win, we have to take care of all the departments,” said Shakib.
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