Champions Trophy 2017 | Chandika Hathurusingha: Reaching semi-final a big step forward for Bangladesh

“It was a gradual improvement if you look at our last few years. I thought the World Cup was a big turning point for us, getting to the quarterfinal, beating England. Then we focused on our home series where we wanted to do well. In the last one year or so we have set our target to do well overseas. This is a journey, the semifinal is a big step forward,” reflected Hathurusingha ahead of the match against India.

“The biggest hurdle for us is playing away from home,” he added. “If you don’t play away from home with big teams, you don’t know where you’re at. Belief comes from playing against the big teams. If you look at our history, whenever we’ve played any team a few times, we’ve closed the gap. That’s the biggest thing if you speak of belief.”

“To be honest, not many people gave us chance to be here even,” he said of Bangladesh reaching the semifinals. “But India is a good team. If we can beat them, it will be a very good achievement for us. At the start of the tournament, I’d have said India were one of the favourites. For me, they are still the favourite team to win this competition. But as I said before, if we play to our potential, we can give any opposition a run for their money.”