Young tigers aim to play World Cup final

Bangladesh under 19 team have finished their Bangladesh phase of preparation for the ICC U19 World Cup. The boys want to shrug off the disappointment of the last edition. Bangladesh came sixth in the last ICC U19 world cup tournament in New Zealand in 2018.

Tuesday was the last day of their training camp in Bogura. Captain Akbar Ali was satisfied with the conditioning. He sounded confident about adjusting to the conditions of South Africa, the venue for the next youth World Cup.

"We had a great camp here. We also will have a 10 day camp in South Africa. The team hopes that they can adjust to the pace and bounce. We all have experiences of playing in different conditions." said the skipper.

BCB youth level selector, Hasibul Hossain agreed with the captain on the camp. He thought that the venue was helpful for the preparation.

"It is hard to get pitches similar to South Africa here in Bangladesh. But, some of the wickets here (Bogura) have a resemblance. That was the reason we chose this venue for training. The camp here will help the boys over there (South Africa)." said Hasibul.

The training and conditioning camp started on December 4. A 15 member squad was finalized from the participating 22 cricketers. The team is high on confidence and wants to perform well at the tournament.

Bangladesh are placed in group C' in the tournament. They have Scotland, Zimbabwe, and Pakistan as their group opponents. The tigers know that things will not be easy in the World Cup. But they are confident about their preparation.

Opener Tanzid Hasan picked Pakistan as their toughest opponent from the group.

"I think Pakistan are the toughest team. But all the other teams are strong too. Anything can happen in cricket. We want to play match by match. We should not set any huge goal right now." added Tanzid

But the selector thinks that the team has the ability to go further in the 2020 edition. 

"We missed out on playing the final on our home turf in 2016. We want to go all the way this time" expects Hasibul.

The Head Coach Navid Nawaz re-iterated the ambition set by the selector. He eyes the final, but the initial target, he feels should be the knockouts.

"We want to qualify for the knock-outs initially. Two teams will qualify from each group. We need to beat Pakistan. Also, Zimbabwe and Scotland have strong youth teams. We need to have separate plans for every match. Boys are in good shape." said the Head Coach.

ICC under 19 World cup starts January 19 in South Africa. Bangladesh team will depart for the tournament on January 4.

The Bangladesh U19 side won their last three bilateral series. They reached the final of the U19 Asia Cup earlier in 2018, where they narrowly missed out against India by five runs.