Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha hinted that the country's leading left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman will have to showcase his skill set in order to earn his spot in the playing eleven.
The left-arm pace bowler, who was picked by Hathurasingha after spotting him in the nets, was considered to be an automatic choice in the national team's white-ball format since making his debut barring injuries.
However, that was not the case during the home series against Ireland as he was rested after the opening game of the three-match ODI series and subsequently failed to retain his spot in the last T20I.
In the recent past Mustafizur's form had been a real concern for the Bangladesh team management and his failure to get a game on a regular basis for Delhi Capitals in the ongoing Indian Premier League only accentuated the fact that the pacer needs to pull up his socks in order to retain his place in Bangladesh's white-ball format while the rise of other pace bowlers like Ebadot Hossain and Hasan Mahmud along with Taskin Ahmed only makes the competition tougher for the experienced campaigner.
"When you don't play it is very hard to say if you're in form or out of form," Hathurusingha told reporters at the Sylhet International Cricket Stadium on Saturday after completing an intense three-day camp ahead of ahead of the three ODIs against Ireland, scheduled in Chelmsford from May-9-14
"He (Mustafizur) hasn't played much and whenever he played here he did well, he did his job for the team," he said. "So I need to see how he goes when he comes back to us (from IPL) and how he performs," he said.
On the batting front, Hathurusingha felt that the openers need to bat with clarity and make sure they take full advantage of field restrictions.
"The openers need to maximize this field restriction. If you're batting in the middle then you're coming in different scenarios like sometimes four out, sometimes five out (fielders), so it's important how you want to start. So if you don't practice that the way you want to start, once you go into the middle then you'll get sucked into the situation which we don't want. We want them to have a clear mind how they have been always regardless of the situation," he said.
Hathurasingha stressed upon extending that attitude right through.
"We're going to play positive, aggressive cricket.
It doesn't mean that we will hit every ball out of the park. Aggressive cricket means that in everything we do, we do very positive, aggressive intent as well as the decision-making. Also, it's going to be aggressive whether the selection with field placing, whether it's the type of ball that we decide to ball, so we want to give them that to go and express themselves," he said.
