New Zealand tour an ideal preparation for World Cup: Mushfiqur Rahim

 London:Bangladesh cricketer Mushfiqur Rahim believes that their upcoming tour to New Zealand would serve as an ideal preparation for the forthcoming 2019 cricket World Cup.

While admitting that New Zealand is going to be a difficult tournament, Rahim said that their team would do well against the Black Caps.

“It will be a difficult challenge in New Zealand. India won the ODI series but New Zealand fought really hard. They have a really good bowling attack but I believe that our team will do well,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Rahim, as saying.

“It will be the ideal preparation ahead of the World Cup. There may be high-scoring matches. If we can overcome those challenges, it will only help us for the future,” he added.

Bangladesh played their last one-day series against West Indies in December last year. Since then, they have been playing just the T20 matches. But Rahim feels that a practice match before the start of the tournament would prove to be useful for them.

“Ideally there should be a week's break (after the BPL) but still, our first game is on February 13. So we have seven or eight days left. We are in match practice, so there can't be anything better than that. It helps you fitness-wise too,” he said.

Bangladesh and New Zealand are slated to play three one-day internationals followed by a three-match Test series from February 13 to March 20.