Whatmore calls for batting improvement

The coach Dav Whatmore is desperate for Bangladesh to avoid a bottom-placed finish in the Super Eights and is hoping for an improved performance against the No. 1-ranked South Africa in Guyana on Saturday. Bangladesh played above expectations in their group matches, but they have failed to keep up the momentum and are without a point after losses to Australia and New Zealand.

"We don't want to finish at the bottom," Whatmore said. "We are not last in the whole tournament, but we are now at the bottom in the Super Eights. Our objective is always to go higher [than Ireland], but the reality is that we are ranked No. 9 and we will be playing to change the rankings."

Bangladesh lost to Australia by ten wickets and to New Zealand by nine wickets, but Whatmore said the side could do better. "Our objective is to push the opposition and this is what we want to do in the remaining matches," Whatmore said. Bangladesh face England, West Indies and Ireland after South Africa.

"We need to up our performance in the second round," he said. "What we have done here is something we had not done in the past. We were once considered minnows, but we are no longer minnows now.

"We achieved our objective in the first round as we played pretty well to qualify for the second round. We had just one bad game against Sri Lanka, but we played three matches and we deserved to be in the Super Eights."

Whatmore said he was looking forward to a better performance from his batsmen in the remaining matches after they scored 174 against New Zealand and 104 for 6 in 22 overs against Australia. "We need to make more runs," he said. "We were not able to score upfront in the last two matches."