Bangladesh play Pakistan on the 1st of May at St Lucia at 5:30 GMT. It has been described as a "final" by some fans of the game. Pakistan will be looking to retain their crown and the way they start their defence may be influential in their long term finalised position in the long run of the competition. They must set the standards and seize the initiative. If Pakistan end up on the losing side that day, the next game will be a do or die situation for the defending champions and they could face the unlike possibility of being eliminated in the preliminary stages against the might of Australia, a team to beat! Therefore, the game against the so called minnows has a lot of influence and cannot be afforded to be taken lightly by any means on the imagination. The tournament defenders should look to stamp their authority with a comprehensive victory and get themselves into form for the next encounter against Australia and try to beat them too as this will install a lot of confidence in the players going ahead into the latter stages of the short and exciting tournament.
Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (captain), Mushfiqur Rahim, Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Mohammad Ashraful, Aftab Ahmed, Mahmudullah, Naeem Islam, Mashrafe Mortaza, Abdur Razzak, Shafiul Islam, Rubel Hossain, Syed Rasel, Suhrawadi Shuvo, Jahurul Islam.
Bangla have caused a few upsets over the years at major global events such as beating India and RSA at the 2007 WC in WI and beating WI at the 2007 ICC T20 in RSA to send the side with their bags packing carrying heavy disappointment and shock to ponder upon whilst they were happily celebrating the achievement in leaps and bounds! Could 1st May be another of those days for them one wonders? Certainly it isn't out of the question as past events implement. They should fancy their chances and look to humiliate the tournament defenders!
Bangladesh are blessed with a few world class players who are underrated and shouldn't be underestimated. Tamim Iqbal is a free scoring left hand opener who can play aggressively and score very quickly, he is one to watch out for and is capable of winning a match single handily on his day. Mohammad Ashraful likes to express himself and therefore is ideally suited to the shortest format of the game. Meanwhile with the ball left arm spinners will be reliant upon including the skipper, Sakib himself. They will have a big role to play in the middle stages and can cause trouble and panic attacks in the batting dug-out with their guile and craft.
Bangladesh lack quality pace bowlers, this is an area teams can capitalise on with ease I dear say. The batsmen will enjoy the format but the bowling is an area that may find the team thoroughly undone and suffer as one may find out and spot.
1 comment:
Don't worry Maz, even if we kill with the bat, our bowlers will kill us.
See, we have those one or two players, but what we don't know how to integrate them into a team where there responsibilities are by no means diminished, but at the the same time the others share a considerable burden.
And our bowlers share no burden at the moment :P.
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