The final of the Asia Cup takes place in Dubai on Friday and for much of the tournament it looked like we would be seeing India taking on Pakistan for the third time in the competition but Bangladesh spoiled the party and it is them who will meet the Indians for the title.
India have come through the tournament unbeaten to this stage while Bangladesh have had to do it the harder way but both sides know what has gone before doesn’t matter anymore. The best team on the day will walk away with the title.
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India
The Indians come into this match off the back of a thrilling tie with Afghanistan in their last Super Fours outing. While that result looks bad, India did rest a few key men and in truth to say it looks a bad result would be disrespectful to the Afghans who are a much improving outfit. Either way it goes without saying that India will need to be better in this match, although we should expect them to be that.
The top three of the Indians have been dominant throughout the tournament but we did see that if you can expose their middle order like Afghanistan did then the lack of time in the middle those players have had make them vulnerable. On the flip side of that the Indian bowlers, when they have been at full strength have been terrific.
Bangladesh
When Bangladesh thrashed Sri Lanka in their opening match of the tournament it looked like they would be powerful contenders for this title. They were then staring down the barrel of the exit door when Afghanistan looked like beating them in the Super Fours but to their credit they held their nerve in the final over of that match and never looked back against Pakistan.
I think we’ve seen in recent matches between these two sides that if Bangladesh are going to have any chance at all of winning this final their star batsmen are going to need to stand up and put up a significant score. While the pitch might help their bowlers a bit that is cancelled out by the quality of the Indian batsmen batting against them.
Team News
India left out Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah against Afghanistan last time out but all four are expected back in the side. Yuzvendra Chahal is another one expected to return.
Bangladesh were already up against it when Tamim Iqbal were ruled out of the tournament and that is further the case now with Shakib-al-Hasan on the sidelines for this final too. That means they may well go in with one frontline spinner but that does lengthen their batting which might be no bad thing.
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Betting
I’m already on Bangladesh at 14/1 having advised them to win the tournament before a ball was bowled in it and that is going to be my match interest in the hope that Bumpy Rhodes can use the underdog mentality he rode so well while with Worcestershire to the advantage of Bangladesh.
I will go with a performance for the final though which involves the India captain Rohit Sharma, who has caught fire in recent times. He has made three successive 50s in this tournament, the last of which he turned into a century in the emphatic win over Pakistan. That followed 83* against this opponent in the match before too. He has two centuries and two 50s in his last six knocks against Bangladesh so I fancy he can cover 43.5pts in this one.
Tips
WON – Back R.Sharma’s Performance – Over 43.5pts for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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