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Chittagong - Imran Tahir believes the Proteas will have no issues adapting to the unfamiliar conditions for the third One Day International (ODI) against Bangladesh at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdury Stadium in Chittagong on Wednesday.
The Proteas arrived in Chittagong on Monday afternoon after spending the opening leg of their tour in Dhaka, and will have an idea of what to expect at the new venue after their run during the ICC WorldTwenty20 last year.
“We have been playing all over the world,” Tahir said to the media at the Proteas’ practice on Tuesday.
“We have played in New Zealand and Australia where the ball doesn’t turn at all. We expected spinning tracks because that would play in Bangladesh’s favour, but I back our players to adapt to the conditions that we are faced with on the day.”
The Proteas have fond memories of the ZAC stadium, having won three of four ICC World Twenty20 matches there last year. The leg-spinner was the leading wicket-taker with 12 wickets in five matches, and says anything over 200 will be a challenging score after two low-scoring affairs in the first and second ODI.
“I’ve played here before so that’s one thing that will count in my favour,” Tahir said.
“Last time we played here it was a good wicket but we don’t know what we will face tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what the wicket looks like, we will be up for the challenge.”
“I think anything over 200 will be a good score. If you look at the way the pitch played in the last game, 300 is also possible, but all of that depends on how you play in the middle overs. For me a score of 250 will be a good score.”
Tahir says the squad has moved on from Sunday’s disappointing loss against a fired up Bangladesh outfit, and are motivated to claim a valuable series win away from home.
“The mood in the camp is great,” he said. “We have a good group of players with strong characters, we will give our best to win the match. We are not worried about what happened in the last match and the game before, we are looking ahead to tomorrow’s game and what we have to do right.”
