Hathurusingha irks about tiny preparation before Ireland ODI opener

|| CF DESK ||

Chandika Hathurusingha, the head coach of Bangladesh, expressed his irritation with the preparation for the ODI series against Ireland. Three One-Day Internationals (ODIs) between the Tigers and the Irish are scheduled to take place in England as part of the ICC ODI Super League, with World Cup qualification points on the line.

Due to rain, the visitors have had difficulty practicing regularly at the Fenners ground in Cambridge. The rain forced them to call off their warm-up game as well.

Both teams did not practice in Chelmsford prior to the series because a County Championship game was still in progress as of May 7th.

"It's a very unique situation since we are playing Ireland in England and normally that doesn't happen. We can't blame anyone and it's the first time. If we knew this, we wouldn't have agreed to this kind of schedule because it's not ideal preparation. We will learn from this one," Hathurusingha said the media on Monday.

The 54-year-old Sri Lankan is confident that Bangladesh will play solid cricket in this series, but he also wants to keep his team in top shape for the Asia Cup and World Cup, especially in light of Taskin Ahmed's injury.

"The players are in very good head space. My challenge is to keep them healthy, keep them fit and keep them playing matches. What happened to Taskin is a good eye opener for us in terms of keeping an eye on how much cricket they play and how to keep them fit for big tournaments like the Asia Cup and World Cup" he added.

Hathurusingha admitted there is not much he can experiment with to try to better prepare for the upcoming extravaganzas apart from winning the series.

"In this series, not much since we are not playing in similar conditions to India. We will focus on winning the series in these conditions. Not much looking into the World Cup due to the conditions," he concluded.

Ireland need to whitewash Bangladesh to make a direct entry to the ICC ODI Cricket World Cup in October-November in India. Bangladesh however have no problem in this regard as they have already qualified to the World Cup.