Mirpur, Mar 16: The world might be waiting for Sachin Tendulkar's 100th international ton but Bangladesh vice-captain Mahmudullah Riyad hoped the batsman does not reach the landmark against his team when they take on India in the Asia Cup on Friday.
Stating that nothing could be better for Bangladeshi fans than Mashrafe Bin Mortaza claiming the prize scalp of Tendulkar, Riyad said, "We all know Mashrafe bhai has always given us a good start against India and I hope it will happen again. Everybody will try their best in the match against India but definitely the expectations will be high for him.
"India have very strong top order batting, so we have to make sure that we get early breakthroughs as well as keep up the momentum if we want to do anything against them.
"Sachin is a great batsman and everybody is waiting for the rare record but as a Bangladeshi player I will not love to see it happen against us and hope we can send him back early."
Riyad said he was expecting Bangladesh's previous performances against the defending champions would inspire his team to do well in tomorrow's match.
"The wicket was very good for batting in the last two games and hopefully it will be the same in the next match, so we have to put up a good total on the board and the encouraging thing is that we always scored handsome totals whenever we met India.
"We had a talk with Saeed Ajmal (Pakistan spinner) regarding the pitch and what he said was that even his doosra was not effective on this pitch," Riyad told reporters here.
Riyad admitted that Bangladeshi players panicked at the crunch moment, which resulted in their defeat against Pakistan in the inaugural match.
"We must be patient in crunch situations and I believe we can make it a habit if we win some close matches."
