Bangladesh ready to stretch India: Ashraful

As the Indian team reached Dhaka on Monday aiming to avenge their World Cup loss, Bangladesh vice captain Mohammad Ashraful said his side has plans to stretch Rahul Dravid's men in the upcoming series.

"They will come hard at us as they probably lost out on a Super Eights spot because of us. But they could find themselves stretched here," said Ashraful, a batting success at the recent World Cup.

Ashraful, in line to succeed long-serving captain Habibul Bashar, said his side could repeat their World Cup performance against India in the one-day series beginning later this week.

"We can beat the best, we have shown that in the past, and if everything clicks we can expect something good out of this series," said Ashraful, who will play his 100th ODI on Thursday.

The 22-year-old played a sterling knock of 87 in engineering an upset over then world's number one-ranked team South Africa during the World Cup in Caribbean.

Ashraful made more runs than any of his team-mates in scoring 216 from nine matches at the World Cup at an average of 36.00. He tends to do well against big teams and usually has been at the forefront of the run-charge in his country's wins against bigger Test nations such as Australia, India and South Africa.

Ashraful also feels that the absence of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly from the one-day squad could hurt the chances of the visiting Indians.

"Definitely, the absence of Tendulkar and Ganguly is a massive handicap for them as those two can win matches on their own. But we should concentrate on our game," Ashraful said.

The first two one-dayers will be played in Mirpur on May 10 and 12 followed by the final game in Chittagong on May 15. The two Test matches that follow are scheduled in Chittagong on May 18-22 and Dhaka on May 25-29.

Ashraful denied that being the vice-captain, he is under pressure and said he is primarily focused on his batting and assisting the captain when required.

"My job remains scoring runs. It's the captain who has to deal with pressure most of the time. I will offer any help I can to the captain and will assist him but the bottomline is that I have to bat well in the middle."

He does not have the figures to justify his mercurial talent but when on song, he could put to rack any bowling attack in the world. He has played 33 Tests for 1,511 runs at an average of 24.37 with three hundreds and 158 being his highest.

In 99 one-dayers, he has 1824 runs at an average of 21.97 and has hit just a solitary century.

Ashraful is expected to lead Bangladesh into the next era with Bashar deciding that the present one-day series against India would be his last.

"I want to leave on a high. I'm saying so because we don't play any more one-dayers at home this year and I don't see myself continuing in limited overs cricket by the time the next one-day series is held in Bangladesh."

Bashar though wants to continue in Tests in which he has scored 2,838 runs from 42 Tests at an average of 34.60 with three centuries and 24 half-centuries.

His one-day record of 2,125 runs from 109 one-dayers suffers in comparison and he averages just 21.68. Bashar's performance in World Cup was decidedly poor and he scored only 105 runs from nine matches at a paltry average of 13.12.

Bashar believes that India will still be a tough opponent, despite the absence of batting stalwarts like Tendulkar and Ganguly.

"We should not look too much into those things. They are still a formidable unit and it will be a tough series. It's also not wise to go into a series with a result in mind," said Bashar.

"I will be happy if we can play to our potential. One win will be good and if the opportunity arises we might go for a series win but the goal is to be competitive.

"The weather and other conditions will not be unfamiliar to India and possibly the only advantage we have is the fact that we are playing in our backyard."