Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto wants his side to focus on the West Indies test cricket series, which starts on Wednesday, rather than think about a potential World Test Championship final.
Fourth in the 2025-27 WTC standings, Bangladesh needs to win at least four of its remaining six matches and draw one to keep up hopes of reaching the final for the first time.
The team has already played six matches, winning three, losing two and drawing one. The three victories included a 2-0 sweep over Pakistan and a historic triumph in Australia.
After the series against West Indies, Bangladesh will play two tests in South Africa and two at home against England. As I said always, if we can fulfil the small target, we’ll achieve the bigger target. So the immediate focus is onto the series against West Indies,” Shanto said. “We have to maintain the process, play as a unit like we did in the other series.”
Bangladesh lost a test against Zimbabwe and drew with Afghanistan, both games were not part of the WTC and were held in the UAE.
“We should have won the test against Afghanistan but we didn’t play good cricket in the last two days,” Shanto said.
Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons believes the ambition of reaching the WTC final will keep his players fully motivated.