Bangladesh, who recently tipped to the sixth spot in the latest ICC ODI Team Rankings, have always been in search of respect in the cricketing world ever since its inception at the international stage.
For a long time, Bangladesh have been catching the attention of the cricketing fraternity with their one-off wins. However, their 2015 World Cup win, series wins against India, South Africa and Pakistan, and now, ahead of their first Champions Trophy in 10 years, the Asian minnows are finally getting the deserved respect.
Bangladesh's opener Tamim Iqbal, who has been with the team for the last 10 years and has been closely involved in the team's rise as an ODI force, believes it is their hard work that has brought them to such a level where oppositions are wary of them.
"That's how it goes, you know," ESPNcricinfo quoted Tamim as saying. "When your team is winning games, when your team is playing better cricket people will notice you, people will respect you. And we deserve the respect we are getting."
"As a team, we have come up a long way. That time we were ranked 10th, now we are ranked sixth. As I told you before, it didn't come easy. We had to go through a lot of lost matches, hard work and criticism as well. But the last two years has been brilliant for Bangladesh cricket. [We are] probably one of the most successful teams in the world if you see in the last two years," he added.
Bangladesh, who are considered among one of the minnows in the cricketing world, have a win-loss ratio of 1.46 from 34 matches since the start of 2015 - the best among the Asian teams.
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As Bangladesh begin their Champions Trophy campaign against England on Thursday, Tamim wants his team to draw from the good memories of their recent past and go into the tournament with a lot of confidence.
"We just need to carry on those things and keep on improving. We know one thing that we need to improve a hell of a lot is to be consistent in international cricket and beat good teams like India, England or Pakistan. We have to keep improving and that's what we are looking for," he said.
"We've done well against [England], but they are playing in home conditions and they have some serious individual players as well. If we want to repeat the result again, we have to be on top of our game in all departments because England is a very, very strong team," he added.
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