Bangladesh will bank on the support of their expat fans to bounce back -Shakib

Shakib Al Hasan said Bangladesh will bank on the support of their expat fans to bounce back in the three-match T20I series when they take on Windies in Florida on Saturday (August 4). Bangladesh lost their last T20I by seven wickets by DLS method after a below-par show with the bat.

The Central Broward Regional Park Stadium Turf Ground in Lauderhill has seen some high scoring contests with India almost chasing down 245 the last time an international T20 was played at the venue (completed game). That leaves the fans with a mouth-watering contest ahead of them with the power-packed Windies batting line-up hoping to dominate the Bangladesh bowling.

“Naturally, it will be exciting. We are expecting to have fun as there will be a huge amount of Bangladeshi fans among the crowd who will surely turn out to be a motivating factor,” Shakib said ahead of the clash.

Shakib also has the experience of playing at the venue while plying his trade in the Caribbean Premier League.

However, he wasn’t sure if the track will yield plenty of runs. “It is difficult to say anything regarding the wicket as it is totally different from the one that hosted the CPL matches,” he pointed out. “There are times when the wicket looks similar but the behaviour is totally different. As per my experience, it seems better than the wicket where we played our last match.”

Bangladesh need to win the contest to keep the series alive. They will be confident of turning things around, especially after the ODI series win, after they were humbled in the Test series. But they’ll need their batsmen to step up and give the bowlers the additional cushion against Windies batsmen.

“We had chances to score runs but we failed to capitalise. We hope we can learn from those mistakes and put up a better account of ourselves. If the wicket behaves like the previous match or better naturally we can expect lot of runs,” Shakib said.

After the second T20I, the teams will meet for the final game of the tour on August 5 at the same venue.