DHAKA, March 21, 2024 (BSS)—Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha believes his side stands on a good chance to be a good contender in the World Test Championship if they can continue to keep their winning streak at home soil.

The Tigers, which finished at 9th position in the last two cycles, had already won a match at home soil, beating New Zealand in the last year. Before that it beat Afghanistan and Ireland in solitary Test match series, which was not the part of Test Championship.

Bangladesh are now up for the challenger of Sri Lanka and Hathurusingha believes his charges has the ability to pass this stern test in the upcoming two-match Test series against the visitors.

“We have high expectations from Test cricket in this cycle,” Hathurusingha said. “We have already played a home series against New Zealand. If we can win most matches at home, then we give ourselves a good chance to be in contention in the World Test Championships’ latter stages. Some of the series coming up are away. They are against higher ranked teams so quite challenging.”

“Sri Lanka is a formidable, very experienced side. This Test series gives us a good challenge but we are up for it.”

Bangladesh received a blow when experienced batter Mushfiqur Rahim was ruled out of the test series because of a thumb injury, sustained during the third ODI.

Towhid Hridoy, who had already cemented his place in Bangladesh’s white-ball cricket, replaced Mushfiqur in the squad.

Hathurusingha said Mushfiqur’s experience will be greatly missed but they will back the young players to grab the opportunity.

“We are going to miss Mushy’s (Mushfiqur) experience. He is in good form. It is very hard to replace this kind of experience straightway,” he said.

“We are going to back our young players. Hridoy is coming in. We also have (Shahadat Hossain) Dipu and Shadman (Islam) in the squad. They have been with the test team lately. It is an exciting time for Bangladesh cricket with so many young players. I will ask them to grab every opportunity.”

The two teams shared the white-ball trophy with Sri Lanka winning the T20 series by 2-1 and Bangladesh securing ODI series at the margin.

Sri Lanka has never lost a Test match on Bangladeshi soil. In 10 matches, they won seven and drew the rest of the three.

Bangladesh have won just one Test against Sri Lanka in 2017 in Colombo, which was its 100th test match.

Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva believes they will be able to keep the winning trend in Bangladesh.

“Our target will be winning the test series and we are upbeat for it,” de Silva said, adding that the experience in his side will give them the edge over Bangladesh.

“In any format of cricket experience matters. we have a lot of senior players in our side; Angelo (Mathews), Dimuth (Karunaratne), Dinesh (Chandimal); yeah we have a good side.”