‘Intent’ has to be right, everything else will follow

The Tigers finally know how they want to play the shortest format of the game. Aggressive cricket with positive intent. Aggressive not only in the sense of hitting each and every ball for a boundary, blindly. "It's aggressive in every sense of the word," head coach Chandika Hathurasingha spoke about shrugging off the fear of failure before the Ireland T20Is. What he meant was the Tigers will be tactically aggressive. From team selection to body language, field placing, and batting. Everything. Aggressive. 

There has been a positive shift in Bangladesh's body language on the field, since the England T20Is earlier this month. The fielding, especially, caught everyone's attention. Even the England skipper Jos Buttler admitted Bangladesh outfielded the current world champions of white ball cricket. 

Batting then stole all the limelight in the recently concluded Ireland series. A true visual representation of 'aggressive cricket with a positive intent'. The Tigers broke a number of their white-ball record in the past two weeks with the bat. All in a positive way, of course. Their highest ODI total, highest T20I total, highest powerplay score, quickest ODI hundred, quickest T20I fifty and so many more. 

The third T20I, perhaps, was unfitting. The Tigers failed to secure their first-ever back-to-back series sweeps. They lost to Ireland for the first time at home after being bundled out for 124. Most batters gave away their wickets trying to play big hits, most of them at the boundary line. After posting two consecutive 200+ scores, 124 seemed a bit odd. It must have been disappointing for the Tigers. But it was clear they wanted to play this way, and they will continue to do so without being afraid of any failure. 

Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan remarked that there will be a bad day or two, but they will stick to the new approach. 

"We don't want to change our approach. If we want to be a very good team, that's the way we have to play," the Bangladesh skipper said after the defeat.

The captain, and the coach both have spoken about continuing to be fearless and play aggressively. The players have been on board. Each time any player has spoken to the media in the series, they have pointed out playing fearless and aggressive cricket multiple times. 

Even after the defeat on Friday, Taskin Ahmed reminded everyone that there wouldn't be two 200+ totals if they didn't play fearless, aggressive cricket. 

"Intent was the same as the previous two matches. Unfortunately, it happened (batting collapse). But all of us had the intent to play aggressively with a positive mindset," Taskin said in the press conference. 

"Yes, we had a batting collapse today, but we wouldn't have scored two 200+ scores if this intent was there. This has to be understood," the in-form fast bowler reminded. 

"If we want to do in T20Is in the future, we have to have this intent. There will be some days like this when we may collapse trying to play aggressively, but we will move forward accepting that. We can't be afraid (of failure). This will help us in the future."

"When the opponent will be Australia or England, we will have to score big. This intent will help us then. There can be a few collapses. But I don't think we will change our intensity," Taskin's message was clear.

The team has accepted the possible failure here and there trying to continue with this new brand of cricket. What's more important will be to back them when they fail.

Apparently, as the players have mentioned, the players are being backed by the team management. The players are committed to playing with the right intent, the result will surely follow, as it has so far.