Relaxed aggression the way to go: Mash

Mashrafe Bin Mortaza is the truly larger than life figure in the Bangladesh cricket team. On the field he will pay no mind to his heavily strapped knees, knees that barely allow him to walk unfettered, as he bowls with fire with the new ball and in the spur of the moment dives full-length to stop the ball on his follow-through even though there is a fielder behind him to stop the single. His fans may fret in fear of another injury, but living in the present seems to be Mashrafe's motto -- if the prize is in front of him, he will grab at it with little thought to consequence.

Off the field he is the life of the party, joking around with teammates and striking entertaining conversations with the media men who most of the players keep at an arm's length.

He is also Bangladesh's most successful ODI captain, having won 24 out of the 39 matches he captained, and he will stand on the cusp of arguably his greatest triumph -- winning an away series over a higher-ranked opponent -- when Bangladesh take the field at 10:00am (Bangladesh time) today for the third and final ODI against Sri Lanka with a 1-0 advantage.

It is said of the most successful captains that they forge a team in their own image, and Mashrafe seemed to be calling upon the team to display qualities he has in spades in order to bring the series home.

"It is very difficult to play with too much caution, because you cannot play your best that way," Mashrafe responded to a question about whether they will look to mix caution with confidence when the skipper was speaking at a pre-match press conference at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground, the venue of the match, yesterday. "Either you will have to be in a defensive mode or you have to be attacking. And if you want to win a game of cricket, you can't do it being defensive."

He then talked about the second quality which he thought was important for the team to do well. "I think being relaxed is very important, because the team has won two matches on the trot -- a Test and an ODI. So being relaxed is very important and to play according to the plans put in place. But I will always want that we play the aggressive game."

Although a win here will probably fall just short of the sense of achievement that the Test team created by defeating Sri Lanka for the first time in Bangladesh's 100th Test earlier on the tour, it will be another seminal moment as most of Bangladesh's memorable triumphs in ODIs have come at home. If they win today, they will have defeated a higher-ranked opponent away from home for the first time, barring the 2009 series win against a West Indies fielding a second-string side due to a contract dispute.

"If we can win it will of course feel very good. But for that we have to play very good cricket," said Mashrafe. "If you see the last match, they scored 300. Obviously the wicket was very good, but maybe we have to try to minimise 20-25 runs from that. Where they can score 300, we have to keep it to 280.

"There really is nothing to answer. Those who ask these questions are Bangladeshi, we who are playing are also Bangladeshi,” said Mashrafe when asked if winning today would be a fitting riposte to the doubters.

"They will of course have expectations. Maybe everything does not pan out according to expectations. But this is also true, and people have to understand that the world over away matches are always difficult. We will become a truly good team only when we also start winning maximum matches away. I said earlier, before the New Zealand series, that a real test is starting for us -- that most of the matches we have won, we have won at home, now it is about away matches."