ICC World Cup 2019: Mortaza ready to give \'best shot\' against South Africa
Dubai: Ahead of their ICC Men's Cricket World Cup opening game against South Africa, Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Mortaza said, we are "pretty much confident to give our best shot."
South Africa has notable pacer like Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi. In the first World Cup match between England and South Africa, Ngidi and Rabada performed brilliantly as they took three and two wickets respectively.
Even though Mortaza acknowledged the fact that the Proteas have 'wicket-taking' bowlers, he is confident of going in the match against them.
"Obviously they have been wicket taking bowlers for South Africa for a long time. And we are expecting to be tested as with the bounces and everything. But there are other things that we are also ready for. We are pretty much confident to give our best shot," ICC quoted Mortaza as saying.
Bangladesh recently won the Tri-nation series which was hosted by Ireland. In their first match in the series, they competed with West Indies and both Bangladesh openers, Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar, scored their half-century as they scored 80 and 73 runs respectively.
"We will try to test them, as well. Soumya (Sarkar) is in good form. Tamim (Iqbal) is in good form. Hopefully, they will test us and how we have to now go forward, how we have to play, we know our process, as well," he said.
Mortaza also said that they never doubt themselves and stated the example of Mustafizur Rahman, whom he called their 'best bowler'.
"We don't have to think about what going on outside. It is important that we have our own belief. I'll give you an example in Mustafizur. Now everyone doubting him. As a team, we have never been doubting ourselves. We always back Mustafizur," Mortaza said.
"We knew he's our best bowler and still he can change the game; which is more important, what we are thinking ourselves, not thinking outside, because the problem, people don't think about the problems," he added.
Mortaza also said that people only think about individual performances but in his opinion, that is not going to help them.
"People only think about winning, only thinking about an individual's performance, which isn't going to help us a lot. What is going to help is bonding with each other. Even the last round, we knew how things have been going with us," Mortaza said.
Bangladesh will face South Africa at The Oval on June 2.
