In a repeat of last year’s Asia Cup final, the Bangla Tigers will face off against the Men in Blue on a batting friendly wicket at Edgbaston in Birmingham on Tuesday. Virat Kohli’s team would be keen to get back to winning ways after faltering to their first defeat of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup against England, knowing well that winning the next game would end Bangladesh’s semi-final hopes.
The defeat on Sunday highlighted a few latent weaknesses of this Indian side - an ineffective spin unit and a faulty middle-order. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav failed to get going in the previous game, and India would be aiming to rectify those flaws by probably dropping the latter for Dinesh Karthik or newest inductee Mayank Agarwal, who was flown in to replace an injured Vijay Shankar. India have struggled to finish their innings with a flurry and adding a bit of attacking minded players in Karthik or Agarwal could help change that trend.
On the bowling front, Mohammed Shami has been brilliant since he started less than a fortnight ago, picking up 13 wickets in three World Cup games and emerging as his nation’s leading wicket-taker thus far. He has formed a brilliant partnership with India’s most economical bowler Jasprit Bumrah, bowling well in the powerplay stages. The spin department though could be needing a slight reshuffle after being taken to the cleaners by the English batsmen on Sunday. Ravindra Jadeja could be given a look-in instead of either Yuzvendra Chahal or Kuldeep Yadav, in a bid to curb the opposition team’s scoring rate.
For Bangladesh, it would be sticking to the basics in this must-win clash on Tuesday. Their batting has been formidable thus far, with all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan finding a purple patch with both bat and ball. He has got three fifties and two centuries in this World Cup, with a lowest score of 41. Shakib has been well complemented by the likes of Liton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim, who have each scored match-winning fifties. The Bangla Tigers though would be hoping for more from their openers Tamim Iqbal and Soumya Sarkar in this crunch game against the No.1 ranked ODI team.
The Bangla bowlers though have proved to be a tad on the expensive side, conceding in excess of 300 runs four times thus far. The pace battery of Mashrafe Mortaza and Mohammad Saifuddin have been largely ineffective and would be eyeing significant improvements if they are to win against India. The positive on the bowling front though is that the left-arm duo of Shakib and Mustafizur Rahman have been clinical, and another good showing could see Bangladesh upset the odds and beat India for only the second time in a World Cup game.
Feature image courtesy: Cricket World Cup/ Twitter
