DHAKA, Aug 9: Bangladesh must not lose the confidence and spirit gathered from its recent Australian tour, despite a clean sweep loss to the world champions, coach Dav Whatmore said here on Saturday.

“If the team can keep the confidence gained from the Australian tour, we will perform better on our upcoming Pakistan tour,” he told reporters after returning to Dhaka. “Pakistan will be a testing ground for Bangladesh.”

The Bangladesh team leaves for Pakistan on Aug 17 for its first experience of three Tests and five one-dayers with the former world champions.

Whatmore said his fledgling team had learned tough lessons during the two Tests and three one-dayers at Cairns and Darwin, during which they gained valuable experience.

“I am overall happy with the tour as I achieved my target of developing individual performance, although the boys could have done better,” he said.

Whatmore said a major problem for the batsmen was that they still lacked the ability to decide how to hit a particular ball.

Whatmore, who was appointed the coach of Bangladesh barely three months ago, had warned that turning the beleaguered minnows into a winning team was “very hard”.

Captain Khaled Mahmud said he would step down as captain if he thought he did not perform well during the Pakistan tour.

“I personally think I could have done better in Australia and I just don’t want to remain in the team for the captaincy,” he said.

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