The first test between India and Bangladesh was a complete washout, with only 185 overs bowled in the entire match. It is hoped that the 3 match ODI series will be different, but things don’t look all that promising, with the weather playing culprit yet again.
The captains are back – MS Dhoni for India and Mashrafe Mortaza for Bangladesh. India is full strength, putting out their strongest team possible. Here’s what Dhoni has to say about coming back: “Every individual is different. All of you ask questions but your question is very different. It is the same way when it comes to captaincy. You don’t want everybody to do the same thing.”
Clearly, they are not taking this Bangladesh outfit lightly at all. Bangladesh showed with their clean sweep of Pakistan that there is a lot more to Bangladesh cricket than earlier thought. This follows a creditable performance by them earlier in the World Cup in Australia, where they eventually lost to India in the quarter-finals.
ODIs the world over have become a run fest. Over one-third of the matches played over the last five months have seen scores of over 300. More of the same is expected in this match as well. In fact, going by what’s happening in the series between England and New Zealand, don’t be surprised to see a couple of 400 plus scores either. The rules in ODIs are heavily stacked in favor of batsmen.
And both teams have powerful batting line-ups. India has match winners at every batting position from 1 to 7, Bangladesh isn’t too bad either, with batsmen till no. 8.
Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza knows how hard beating India can be, but remains optimistic: “The first match is most important. I know there are calculations about our rankings and that thought is also among us. But that is about the next six games and they aren’t all happening today or tomorrow. We have to take it match by match.”
Both teams have fast bowlers ion their line-up. India have Umesh Yadav, their first truly quick fast bowler. Bangladesh have Taskin Ahmed and Rubel Hussain, both with genuine pace. Rubel’s sendoff to Virat Kohli at the World Cup after taking his wicket has not been forgotten by Indian fans and they would expect Virat to teach the young Bangladeshi bowler a lesson.
Bangladesh must win at least one match in the next three games to qualify for the Champions Trophy for which only 8 teams can play. So they would be taking this series very seriously.
The Teams
Bangladesh: 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Soumya Sarkar, 3 Mominul Haque/Litton Das/Rony Talukdar, 4 Mushfiqur Rahim, 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Sabbir Rahman, 7 Nasir Hossain, 8 Mashrafe Mortaza, 9 Arafat Sunny, 10 Rubel Hossain, 11 Taskin Ahmed
India: 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Ajinkya Rahane, 5 Suresh Raina 6 MS Dhoni (capt &wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Mohit Sharma
Match Conditions
Mirpur pitch is known to be a slow one, and it would be hard for the fast bowlers to generate any pace from it. The Monsoon season is on in the subcontinent, and frankly it will be a miracle if we see all 100 overs bowled tomorrow. The weather department has forecast heavy rainfall.
Watch India take on Bangladesh on Thursday, live on Star Sports at 2:30 PM.
