Bangladesh’s performance in the ongoing World Cup has been nothing short of magnificent. The team that rode on poor lucks and dreary teamwork to the biggest cricketing event, stunned the big guns with their on-field exhibition as they qualified for the quarterfinals from Pool A by eliminating the gentlemen of the game – England.
Who would have thought Bangladesh will pick the mega event to turn around from a humiliating 2014 that continued its trail to the four warm-up matches in the build up to the World Cup. Bangladesh even lost to Ireland in the warm-ups that not only made the cricket pundits rule them out of any positive equation, but the fans who just wanted them to put up a fight in their defeats.
After one month of the World Cup now Bangladesh are a side only three wins away from lifting the greatest glory of the game. The wish may sound crazy, but not unachievable for Mashrafe and his troop, who staged their fighting character right from their first game against Afghanistan.
However, at the moment Bangladesh’s “final” is on March 19 at the Melbourne Cricket Club against defending champions India who wrapped up the proceedings of Pool B by beating Zimbabwe yesterday.
The exited bunch of Bangladeshi cricketers made a gaffe of their debut at the MCG earlier, but their consistency apart from that group game against Sri Lanka earned them a second chance. One of the co-hosts of the 2011 World Cup, in which Bangladesh were convincingly beaten by India but that was only after the Tigers made their neighbors “bleed blue” back in 2007.
India are a more sound team no doubt, but they aren’t invincible. MS Dhoni and Ravi Shastri, the team director, are the men behind their triumph in the tournament so far. Their tactical moves saw them turn around from a win less three months in Australia before the World Cup to make it six out of six in the group stages in the same country.
So it won’t be surprising if Bangladesh beat India to continue their fairy tale run, but in order to script the story further the Tigers must do their homework properly. Players of both teams are very familiar with each other and the only difference will be created by the strategical steps taken in the game. India have so far used three seamers in each game and all of them followed a simple plan – bowl at the body – which brought them majority of the success in his World Cup dominated by the willow.
The big grounds in Australia saw the bodyline bowling tactics by India work wonders and it was evident against top-class batsmen like Hashim Amla, Chris Gayle, Faf du Plessis and some more who found it tough to score from the short deliveries and eventually were held out in the deep trying to clear the ropes.
Bangladesh’s bowling has always been better compared to their batting, but the strength the latter unit is showing is making all the difference. The bowlers are at their prime and Chandika Hathurusingha must have noted India’s point of attack and there is no doubt the calm mentor will make his batters practice playing the short deliveries in the nets in the next few days. If Bangladesh tackles the short deliveries at the MCG, there is a good chance they will make Dhoni think harder than he anticipated. Dhoni is a cool and composed captain and he is never short of a plan, but at the same time he is also not unbeatable.
Apart from Sunil Gavaskar, all the great Indian pundits like Navjot Singh Sidhu, Akash Chopra, Deep Dasgupta and Sourav Ganguly feels Bangladesh stands no chance against their team at all. Australia, England and India are called the Big 3 of cricket. Luck (rain) saw Bangladesh claim a point from the first, never-say-die and planned action saw them beat England and if the Bengal Tigers continue their trend of killing “giants” then the pundits might as well will be looking for a hideout.