Mominul Haque: Everyone banking on us to beat India

Ahead of their tour to India, Bangladesh A skipper Mominul Haque believes that given the experienced line up, his team has a fair chance to upstage India. The visitors are scheduled to play three ODI games and two three-day games starting September 16 in Bangalore and Mysore.

When enquired about the responsibility of captaincy on his young shoulders he said “I haven’t really thought about these things in the last few days,” Mominul said.

“I want to enjoy captaincy like I did with my batting. I have to learn a few things because I am a new captain. I will try to recover in areas I am lacking in. I think it will be good to have experienced players in the team. Most of them have played for Bangladesh, and it is a good team.

“I never really thought what part of my character will help my captaincy. I have to give it a think. I think my calm personality might help me.”

He has received full support from the coach Heath Streak said:

“Mini [Mominul] has a very good cricket head. He has a very good temperament. He has shown it in the Test arena. His hunger for knowledge in cricket is good. Definitely, he would be a future leader. For him, this is a good reward. Hopefully this will be start as a leader.”

Talking about the pressure of captaincy, Mominul expressed that he wasn’t afraid of any responsibility and also added that there was no pressure also mentioning:

“The pressure doesn’t really work on me. There’ll be pressure at this level, and if one can’t handle this pressure, it is better to stay away from the game. We have to stay consistent with our winning habit. We will carry this thought to India and wouldn’t like to lose it.

“If I do well in this format, it will help me later. I will enjoy the game, try to play well, perform, that’s all. We want to win every game. We won four bilateral series in a row, so people expect from us that we will play well and win the series in India.”

Streak said it was an added advantage having four pacers in the squad and also mentioned that he was preparing young pacer Taskin Ahmed for the long run by moulding him into a bowler fit for Test matches, as he has been playing a lot of T20 internationals.

“I think it is an opportunity for Shafiul (Islam) and Al-Amin (Hossain) to be looked at by the selectors. Taskin has been playing the shorter format,” Streak said.

“We will now try to get him ready for longer-version cricket. But that’s still a long road. It is hard to put a timeframe on it. We have to prepare him. It is difficult to play only one series of three-day games and then play five-day cricket. It is an optimistic jump. We will be sensible about it. We don’t want to risk him when we have the World T20 coming up next year.”