Bangladesh 'never better prepared' - Ashraful

Mohammad Ashraful has pointed to Bangladesh's intensive preparation across three continents as their biggest asset as they head into the world cup twenty 20. They have played a quarter of all their Twenty20 internationals this year, as well as two competitions where they played unofficial matches, all targeted towards proper build-up to the event, a factor that went missing ahead of two of the three previous tournaments.

"We have played a lot of Twenty20 matches during the past couple of months. If you include the practice games then we will have around 17-18 matches going into the first encounter of the World Twenty20," Ashraful said after Bangladesh's arrival in Colombo.

"We have found some ideal cricketers for Twenty20 to compliment the likes of Shakib, Tamim, Mushfiqur Rahim and Abdur Razzak," Ashraful said. "Ziaur Rahman is a handy batsman to have as he is a natural big hitter. Mahmudullah is becoming a very useful allrounder in  these conditions and Elias Sunny has prove his worth in this version.the return of Mashrafe is a big plus and he has got into a nice rhythm. his lower order batting can also change matches."

Bangladesh play both their World Twenty20 group-stage matches in Pallekele, starting with New Zealand on September 21 and then against Pakistan four days later.