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Friday, September 28, 2018

India are the favourites for the title but they need to be wary of Bangladesh

India will be massive favourites to lift the Asia Cup later today, but they need to be wary of a resurgent Bangladeshi side. The recipe for recent domination for Team India in limited overs cricket has had three ingredients. 


Firstly, red hot smoking form of the Top 3 - Rohit, Shikhar (or Rahul) and Virat. Even without Kohli, Team India has managed to shield the middle order, so much so that the middle order has been largely untested. Secondly, the wicket taking ability of Bumrah and Bhuvi at the top of the opposition innings, which takes the steam out of the batting effort. And, thirdly the rise and rise of Kul-Cha, KULdeep Yadav and Yuzvendra CHAhal. After Bhuvi and Bhumrah have done the damage in the initial overs, Kul-Cha have been effective in taking wickets in the middle overs further denting the chances of a revival and a strong finish towards the end for the opposition. I am pretty sure, that in conditions like in the UAE, any top side would have struggled against Team India. 

So Bangladesh need to attack these three ingredients to be able to hope to beat Team India. They will need to hold back Mushrafe Mortaza and Mustafizur for the middle overs. If they strike during these middle overs then it means they have less to get when batting or less to defend. Start the bowling with spinners on both sides, Mehidi  Hasan and another tweaker or maybe Mustafizur when he is fresh. If they get both Rohit and Shikhar very early, they might open up the untested Indian middle order. For their own batting, they need to push up Imrul Kayes and open the batting with him; he is looking in good touch. So Soumya Sarkar and Imrul Kayes at the top, and start in traditional ODI style batting seeing off the first 12-15 overs in a sedate fashion. Then hope, Mushfiqur and Mithun hold the fort in the middle and provide a platform for the strokeplayers like Mahmudullah, Mosaddek  and others later on. Even after this if they end up losing, they might reconcile that they lost to a world class ODI side. No shame !

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