Can they make their most successful year in international cricket even better?

By beating South Africa 2-1 in the ODI series last week, Bangladesh propelled to a different stratum of performance and answered the question asked of them at the end of their 2-1 ODI series win over India. Between 2002 and 2011, Bangladesh dreaded playing against South Africa, losing 13 out of the 14 ODIs they played in this period. But in the space of five days, not only did they fight back from three demoralising losses in the T20s and first ODI, they dominated a dominant force.

As their international schedule stands now, Bangladesh have no more ODIs in 2015, and will play in the format again only during a five-match series against Zimbabwe early next year. The BCB is trying to persuade West Indies to play three ODIs and three T20s in November this year, but negotiations are still ongoing.

If the South Africa ODI series was indeed their last of 2015, then Bangladesh should be proud for recording the fourth-most ODI wins in the first six-and-a-half months of the year, and also for ending with the third-best win/loss ratio behind Australia and New Zealand. The 2-1 series win against South Africa also cemented their place in the 2017 Champions Trophy.

The manner in which Bangladesh engineered the turnaround against South Africa was quite simple, but someone had to sit down and do the straight-talking with a team that lost three games in the space of a week.

Mashrafe Mortaza had less than 48 hours to turn around from being 1-0 down on July 10. Coupled with the 2-0 T20 series defeat, there was suddenly some ill-feeling, much of which was unnecessary. Mashrafe held lengthy discussions with the batsmen and bowlers and asked them to remember how they won against India and Pakistan, and repeat it on July 12 and 15.

Content taken from www.espncricinfo.com