Capel demands more from his charges

The Bangladesh women's cricket team will play their second ODI match against their South African counterparts in Potchefstroom today after suffering a 106-run loss in the first game at the same venue on Friday.

Bangladesh's performance in the first game of the five-match series was nowhere near what they had shown in the warm-up game and Bangladesh coach David Capel laid the blame for that heavy defeat on his side's poor fielding efforts, demanding more intent from his charges.

"We're going to have to search a little bit for the positives," Capel was quoted as saying by the International Cricket Council (ICC) website. "I would say our fielding was below the standard at which we would have liked to perform. Ground fielding wasn't good, we missed early chances.

"Our early seam bowling was good but wasn't supported very well with our fielding. So, if you take the early chances, stop the couple of fours that go through early on, that can make a difference.

"We have game plans but we didn't bowl to our game plans with the spin. [There were] Far too many short balls. And field placings were disjointed since we didn't bowl to our game plans."

Meanwhile the women cricketers in the country are desperately looking for the appointment of a permanent head coach so they can have a long-term plan as Capel is only working on a part-time basis. Capel only joined the women's team during the training camp in Sylhet ahead of the tour.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board are looking for a permanent coach for the women's team and it was learnt that they have been negotiating with former India women's team wicketkeeper Anju Jain as they are not interested in extending former England all-rounder Capel's 18-month contract.

The Bangladesh women's team have a number of international assignments this year. After South Africa, they are scheduled to play the Asia Cup in Malaysia in June. They will then embark on a 10-day tour of Ireland, after which they will fly to the Netherlands to play the ICC World T20 qualifiers. If they manage to qualify they will go to the West Indies to play the ICC World T20 in November.