Bangladesh to lean on practice game's outcome in World Cup clash against Sri Lanka, says Fahima

Navi Mumbai, Oct 19 (PTI) Leg spinner Fahima Khatun on Sunday backed Bangladesh batters to draw confidence from their narrow one-run victory over Sri Lanka in the practice game before the World Cup as the two teams are set to face-off in a must-win contest here.

While neither the sixth-placed Bangladesh nor seventh-ranked Sri Lanka are among the front-runners to make the World Cup semifinals, the outcome of the game here on Monday could have implications on their future in the World Cup.

"You know we did really well against Sri Lanka in practice game. We have confidence about this because our batters did really well against Sri Lanka in practice game. Hopefully they will do same thing in tomorrow's game," Fahima told media on the eve of the match.

"In this type of conditions we have already adjusted," she said.

Former Sri Lanka player and women's team head coach Rumesh Ratnayake said it was not a “sense of relief” that they are out of Colombo, where two of their five matches were washed out.

"To know that we could play a good game of full day's cricket is always an appreciative thing, and (it’s) a thing that coach or even the spectators would want to see. Yeah, (we are) a bit saddened by the weather (for it) not being right back home,” he said.

Ratnayake said Sri Lanka are prepared for the full game and will focus on what has worked for them in the tournament, as the island nation’s team has so far lost each of their three full matches.

“With the little we have played, we can say there are two sides to it. We can show some of the positives, some of the negatives, but we would like to go with the things which we have done well with and that's our sort of motivational side of things which we try to put into the heads of the players,” he said.

“Things haven't gone well, you can blame the weather, but I don't like to give an excuse as of what we cannot control.” “There are good periods of ours, especially that New Zealand game we saw some good batting in it, and we like to put it together and hopefully get it right in tomorrow's game also,” he added.

Ratnayake said Sri Lanka coaches have tried to build the team’s attack beyond the skills of their captain Chamari Athapaththu, who remains the backbone of the team.

“When she scores, it's really good. Everybody is delighted if she scores. But our preparation, as one other asked us, is to how do we counter-attack without her? How do we counter things without her?” Ratnayake said.

“Our preparation in the past year, that has been the challenge for coaches and we personally feel that we have gone a notch or two higher than what we expected. So it's a bit disappointing when that does not happen,” he added.

Ratnayake said all teams got a “level playing field” in the competition and early starts for matches with rough weather predictions is something that ICC can look into for future editions.

“Not only us, so many teams have gone through that. But it’s I think (up) to the organisers to work on in another World Cup in the future, it's a thought which they would have for sure, I'm sure, and sort out something like that,” he said.

“But they've had everybody on the same level (playing) field, so to speak, everybody's on the level field, as of day-night games rather than a day game. Some might have a day game, some may not have a day game, so it has been on the level field,” Ratnayake added. PTI DDV AT AT