Mashrafe still hopes to reach Asia Cup final

DUBAI, Sept 22 (bdnews24.com): Bangladesh ODI captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza is still hopeful that his team will win a place in the Asia Cup final despite two straight losses.

"We have to beat Afghans to place ourselves in final", Mashrafe said at a media briefing after the latest defeat to India.

"We still have two games left in the tournament. We still have the scope to overcome. We will get a day off to prepare further for the next game."

The captain said the next game would be a challenge, saying it would be more difficult to face wickets in Abu Dhabi than Dubai against the Afghan's tough spinners. But the captain continues to hope for the best.

"I think it [reaching the final] is still possible. We have no reason to lose hope. It is obviously frustrating to lose two games in a row. But nobody wanted that.

Especially the result of this match [against India] disappointed us as we gave more importance on it. But our batting collapsed and that was really frustrating."

"But we still have chance to recover. One fantastic game can change everything. We still have two more games remaining at this stage, against Afghanistan on Sunday and Pakistan on Wednesday, and we need to win both to earn a spot in the final."