Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons has insisted that his side is determined to play their best cricket against Pakistan in the upcoming three-match ODI series, with their primary focus on improving their position in the rankings.
Every ODI series Bangladesh plays ahead of the 2027 World Cup will be crucial for securing direct qualification for the tournament. However, speaking to the media at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Monday, Simmons said that moving up in the rankings is their bigger priority.
"It is about making sure that we step up in the table and not just the fact that we want to be an automatic qualifier at eight or above. The fact is that we want to move up the table," he said.
"If we get to seven or six by the time we qualify for the World Cup, that's fine. But we just want to move up the table, and that means playing better cricket against all opponents."
Bangladesh's status as an ODI powerhouse has declined in recent times due to inconsistent performances in the format over the last three years.
However, Simmons remains hopeful that the team can get back on track after their victory against the West Indies in their last ODI assignment in October last year.
"We finished well against West Indies, and we don't want to go backwards from there. The wickets look a lot better than they were for that series," Simmons pointed out.
He also highlighted two areas where the team needs mprovement."So the main thing is to look for progress, to move to the next step, which is to bat the way we batted in that last game," he said.
"But we also need to fix a few areas because I still think we can improve in the middle overs, especially since we've not been very good there. Our bowling also needs improvement as we have to take more wickets in the middle overs. Those are the two areas that we're going to focus on a lot."
Simmons added that the pitch conditions appear better this time, which is encouraging for the team.
"The wickets look better now. I watched the last part of the BPL, even the game played two days ago, and it still looks a lot better now. That's what we want as cricketers - to play on good wickets so that we can test our skills."
Simmons also said that Bangladesh have moved on from the disappointment of not playing in the T20 World Cup and are now fully focused on the Pakistan series.
"I think we're getting past that (T20 World Cup). I think the BCL helped, and with that little tournament we started to get back into the frame of playing 50-over cricket and thinking about these three matches against Pakistan. So I think we're getting there," he concluded.
