New Zealand leg-spinner Ish Sodhi has expressed support for the ‘experienced heads’ in his team to recover from the loss in the first Test match against Bangladesh. The second Test between Bangladesh and New Zealand will begin on Wednesday in Mirpur.
New Zealand Test captain Tim Southee believes that his team didn’t bowl consistently in the proper places for long enough after their 150-run loss in Sylhet. ‘The great success this New Zealand team has had over the past decade has been the ability to park these sorts of things pretty quickly, whether it’s success or loss,’ Sodhi said.
It is never anything to take for granted. It is always hard to come back off the back of a loss. But with the experienced heads here, we’ve been there; we’ve done that. We know how to apply ourselves in the next game. Hopefully, that’s something we can commit to really well and apply to this next game.
It is obviously tough to come out on the losing side in that first game in Sylhet, but I think as the Test progressed, we found a bit more rhythm. Obviously, I haven’t played Test cricket in a while, so it’s always going to be tough in these conditions.
The way that Bangladesh played, they certainly outplayed us. But upon reflection, I think they gave us a blueprint on what’s successful in these conditions, and hopefully, we can apply that to this next Test match,’ the spinner added.
In the first Test, Bangladesh scored 310 and 338 points, totals that Southee felt were higher than what New Zealand should have surrendered. Sodhi also urged the bowlers to be more precise in order to level the two-Test series.
‘It is about working in partnerships and being a little bit more accurate. That’s something hopefully we can come together as a bowling group over the next couple of days – discuss as a spin-bowling group, seam-bowling group, whatever that looks like, and try to make improvements. It’s always going to be challenging, not playing a lot of Test cricket over a long period of time, but when you come together, how quickly you can adapt,’ the 31-year-old spinner said.
