England refuse to be rigid about pitch against Bangladesh

Dhaka, 8 Oct - With the Dharamsala wicket uncharacteristically favouring spinners, there is sense of belief that Bangladesh would have the edge over England when they face off each other for their second game in the ICC Cricket World Cup Tuesday.

Bangladesh beat Afghanistan by six wickets in the first match hosted by this stadium with their spinning duo Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz sharing six wickets between them.

After that match, Afghanistan opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz made one of the observations that this particular wicket is not one for playing cross-batted. He said very vehemently that even though he could have played those shots he was quite frustrated.

And a team being the aggressive approach team that it has been over the years, it is believed this poses a challenge to England in the upcoming game against a side that has a lot of slow bowlers.

But Buttler was unfazed by it, saying: "That's one individual's take on the wicket. We always go into the game being prepared but with an open mind to react to what comes down, react to the conditions on the day and like I say, encourage guys to be positive. So, we don't go in with too many preconceived ideas about things like that."

"As I said, it's about reacting on the day. I think we can sit here and talk for ages about what might happen or what the wicket might play like. The skill of the game is working that out very quickly as soon as the match starts and playing accordingly."

In World Cup, these two teams met four times and the result is tied with 2-2. Bangladesh won the match against England in 2011 and 2015 World Cups while England's win came in 2007 and 2019.

As the stat said, Bangladesh are a tough nut to break for England, Buttler didn't think so.

"No, not at all," Buttler replied to a query whether Bangladesh would be a threat for them. "We've had some excellent games against Bangladesh, a very good team and we respect every team that we play against and in World Cup matches you expect really tough opponents and tough fixtures."

England tasted a thumping nine-wicket defeat to New Zealand in their World Cup opener but Buttler believes his team has the ability to hit back from that disappointing defeat.

"Both teams have only played one match, so we're very confident as a team. We know we can play better than we did in the last game and we look forward to putting in a good performance tomorrow."