Heading into the two-Test series, Bangladesh and West Indies had contrasting preparations.
Knowing they would have to face a lot of spin, West Indies held a two-week camp in Chennai, India, to make sure that they were equipped for it, especially because they had only five players in the squad who had played in Bangladesh beforehand.
Then they landed in Bangladesh and, besides training, played a two-day practice match to acclimatise themselves to the conditions.
On the other hand, the whole Bangladesh squad only trained for a couple of days before the first Test in Dhaka, with several of their players coming into the series right after a disappointing tri-nation ODI series in the UAE, where the Tigers lost to both Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.
Even before that, Bangladesh’s last four Tests – one in the UAE against Afghanistan, two against Australia, and one against Zimbabwe – were all played in strikingly different conditions than the spin-friendly conditions that were offered in Mirpur.
To tackle spin, Bangladesh batters were seen sweeping a lot in the nets during their brief training period; however, during the match, the batters rarely used it until Nayeem Hasan, who scored the only fifty in the Bangladesh second innings, started sweeping on the fourth morning.
All of that resulted in Bangladesh’s eight-wicket defeat, a result that now realistically rules them out of the World Test Championship final qualification. Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto, though, refused to accept that their preparation was not good enough.
‘As a professional player, whatever format we play, to us it’s important how we can do well in this format. So, I still think that our preparation was good. Every player did what they needed to do and got ready to play this match,’ he said at the press conference following the match.
However, West Indies batting coach Floyd Reifer had said on Friday that they had identified playing spin as an issue even before reaching Chennai, and that led to the extensive preparation for the series.
‘We had very good preparation. We spent two weeks in Chennai. We batted a lot of spin there. Guys batted for long periods of time. And even before we got to Chennai, these are things that we’ve been working on. We identified that spin is a challenge for us. So this is an area that we’ve really improved on,’ he said.
‘The guys are very confident in terms of how they approach the spin, in terms of being strong in defence, being confident in their defence, rotation of strike, and scoring options.’
‘As a professional player, whatever format we play, to us it’s important how we can do well in this format. So, I still think that our preparation was good. Every player did what they needed to do and got ready to play this match,’ he said at the press conference following the match.
However, West Indies batting coach Floyd Reifer had said on Friday that they had identified playing spin as an issue even before reaching Chennai, and that led to the extensive preparation for the series.
‘We had very good preparation. We spent two weeks in Chennai. We batted a lot of spin there. Guys batted for long periods of time. And even before we got to Chennai, these are things that we’ve been working on. We identified that spin is a challenge for us. So this is an area that we’ve really improved on,’ he said.
‘The guys are very confident in terms of how they approach the spin, in terms of being strong in defence, being confident in their defence, rotation of strike, and scoring options.’