With an aim to payback the last World Cup's humiliating defeat, India (Ind) takes on Bangladesh (BAN) in the opening match of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 at Shere Bangla Stadium in Mirpur on Saturday.
Bangladesh won the toss and decided to put India to bat.
Virender Shawag and Sachin Tendulkar started as opening batsmen.
India is batting at 129 at the loss on one wicket at the end of 20th over.
Sachin Tendulkar was run out at 28.
Gautam Gambhir had come in place of Sachin.
Gambhir was sent packing by the spinner Mehmadullah at 39.
Virat Kohli is the next batsman from India.
India is meanwhile, playing at 160 for two at the end of 24th over.
Dhoni-led Team India will try to start the World Cup campaign on winning note against Bangladesh.
However, cricket pundits think of it as a cakewalk for India but Dhoni & Co. must keep in mind that Bangladesh had defeated ‘Men in Blue’ by five wickets at the 2007 World Cup at Port of Spain.
Bangladesh have played Good home series before the World Cup. They thrashed New Zeraland and Zimbabwe in the ODI series. Bangladesh will have an advantage of playing under the home condition.
On the other hand, India is the 2nd ranked team in the ICC ODI rankings and team is performing better under pressure situation.
After winning both the Warm-up games, the morale of Team India is at its peak but it will have to keep the nerve in particular game.
Middle order was big trouble for India but in the final warm-up game against New Zealand, middle order shown sign of returning in form. Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina and skipper MS Dhoni played good knock and scored freely.
Though there is a tough fight between Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina for the place in the playing XI.
Chances of Yuvraj singh are very bright as he is the only left-arm spinner in the side. But he is off colour with the bat. He scored just one run against Australia in the first warm-up game. Nevertheless, he was very effective with the ball in both games. In such circumstances, Raina will have to sit out and pave the way for Yuvraj Singh despite of scoring quickfire fifty in the final warm-up game.
If Yuvraj gets a berth in the final XI, he will have to play at No.6 or7 as Dhoni has indicated that he will play up in the order.
It will be interesting to see, India will play with two spinners and two seamers or not. The track is expected to be slower one and it will help spinners as game progresses. In this condition, Piyush Chawla is expected to support Harbhajan Singh in the spin department. It is obvious that India will play with four regular bowlers and rest of the overs will be completed by part-timers like Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan.
Most probably India’s playing XI will look like: Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh/Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni, Yusuf Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel/ Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla/ R Ashwin.
As far as Bangladesh is concerned, the made tremendous progress after the 2007 World Cup. They won three matches out of nine matches in the Caribbean World Cup. In the last four years Bangladesh has won 38 matches out of 88 and their winning percentage is 34.09.
Bangladesh is one of the youngest sides and it has average age of 25. In one word, a good encounter is expected when both the Asian countries will lock horn in a day/night encounter on February 19.
Pitch report:
Toss will once again play crucial role at Shere Bangla Stadium. It is expected that track will go slow in the second half. The team should bat first after winning the toss.
Statistics:
Overall, India and Bangladesh have played 23 ODIs. India managed to win 20 times while locals have tested the victory just twice, including famous victory in the 2007 World Cup while one match was abandoned. The winning percentage of India and Bangladesh are 90.9% and 9.09% respectively.
Players to watch:
India: Sehwag, Tendulkar, Kohli, Dhoni and Zaheer
Bangladesh: Tamim Iqbal, Shakib-al-Hassan, Abdur Razzak.
Series: ICC Cricket World Cup 2011
Match: Ind vs Eng
Venue: Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Bangladesh
Timing: 14.00 hrs (IST)
Live telecast: ESPn, Star Sports, Star Cricket
Live score update and commentary: Samaylive.com
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