The New Nation - Internet Edition

bdnews24.com, Dhaka

Bubbling with newfound confidence after Thursday's inspiring seven-wicket win in the first match, Bangladesh are eyeing a back-to-back win against New Zealand on Saturday to wrap up the three one-day internationals series with a match to go.

The match starts at 9:00am at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium with state-run television BTV beaming the match live from the venue.

"We had been struggling for one and a half to two years for a good win and everyone is on a high now. We will try to win tomorrow to make sure the series is ours," said vice-captain Mashrafee Bin Mortaza after the training session on Friday.

"We hardly get this type of opportunity to win a series opener against a top team and we don't want to throw the chance of winning the series away as we have two matches in hand. I think all of us will play keeping this fact in mind," said a confident-sounding Mashrafee, who tore through the Black Caps batting order with four for 44.

The Tigers, however, were not being complacent after the win and were planning a different strategy for Saturday's game.

"What happened yesterday is behind us and we are going to face New Zealand in a new game and thinking different for the match. We have already discussed that aspect among ourselves," Mashrafee said.

The 25-year-old pacer played down the importance of toss and believed judicious batting, tight, probing bowling, and sharp fielding were needed if they were to win the game.

"It is more important to play better in all three departments together instead of worrying about whether we win the toss and choose to bat or bowl first. It won't do any good getting if we do better in only one or two departments," said the vice-captain.

Bangladesh have not won back-to-back matches against a top-ranked team and suffered humiliating defeats in the very next match, instead - a fact Mashrafee was quite aware of.

"We had actually been trying to win a good match and it came true. Now we are looking forward to keeping the performance up to the mark and show competitiveness even in a match we may go on to lose," said Mashrafee.

The pace speahead knows it very well that the opponents would come harder at them in the second match after losing the first.

"It is normal that they will try to come harder at us after going down in the first match, but we will try to do even better than we did yesterday (Thursday)."

The team management has kept opener Imrul Kayes and middle-order batsman Mehrab Hossain Jr out of the 14-member squad.

New Zealanders were busy analysing their performance and spent over an hour in the dressing room to rectify their mistakes by seeing the video footages, said the team's liaison official.

The Black Caps also examined the pitch for the second match.

"Just being smarter in the condition, bowling in better length and better line, adapting to the slow and sticky nature of the wicket and fielding better as well. So all three departments we looked at and I am sure tomorrow we will give a better performance," Jamie How told reporters when asked what they had discussed before starting the practice.

"We are obviously disappointed about our performance in the first game. We are determined to turn that round and we are looking forward to tomorrow and win the series," said Howe.

He added they had learnt a lot from their first game and would play a lot better on Saturday.

He, however, thought that Bangladesh deserved their victory as the New Zealanders got outsmarted, outfielded, outbowled and outbatted.