We have three matches at the T20 World Cup on Thursday and we begin in Group D where second spot and destiny in their own hands is at stake when Bangladesh go up against Netherlands in the opening game in St Vincent.
Both of these teams have played two matches in the tournament and have a win and a draw to their name and while it is advantage Bangladesh as they have the two easier matches left on paper, the Netherlands can bolster their qualifying hopes with a win here.
Bangladesh
After a game and a half it looked like Bangladesh were launching a really strong challenge for this tournament. They had seen off Sri Lanka and had restricted South Africa to a perfectly gettable score in their second game but having failed to chase it down they have left themselves with some work to do to secure their qualification for the next phase, and given their doubters the chance to return and ask questions of their credentials.
To be fair, we should have known that Bangladesh were no certainties to chase that score down against South Africa because they fell over the line in a similar chase against Sri Lanka in their opening match. They could do with a dominant batting display here not just to allow them a better chance of winning the game but also for their own peace of mind. The big surprise for Bangladesh has been their seam bowling which has looked very good so far.
Netherlands
The Netherlands opened up their campaign with a solid enough win over Nepal. There was nothing spectacular about it but you have to give them credit for winning that because with the strength of the teams in this group with three full member nations in it, the Dutch knew that if they lost that game that would most likely have been it for their qualifying chances. They then went down to South Africa but put up the sort of fight that suggests they could pull off an upset to keep their chances alive.
If the Dutch are going to make it out of this group they are going to need to put up two decent batting performances. You would think their batting will improve now that they are out of America but they will need to. The one good thing is they have shown for the last month that their bowling unit is very solid and it doesn’t have a particular weakness so if the batting can come to the fore they can be more than dangerous.
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Team News
There is no real reason for Bangladesh to make any changes to their side for this match but you wonder how long they’ll be prepared to go without top order runs before they do switch things up. Those batters should get another chance to shine away from America.
Netherlands don’t have as many options to change things up as Bangladesh do but they might be content to give the same XI another go given how hard they fought against South Africa in their previous match.
Betting
Logan van Beek is having an excellent World Cup so far and it is almost going unnoticed. In the opening game against Nepal he took 3-18 in 20 balls and took three catches while against South Africa he scored 23 with the bat, took 2-21 from his four overs and took a catch so he is always in the game for the Netherlands and that makes me think that his performance line for this encounter is very low. The line he has for this one is 25.5 which he covered with a wicket, even though he was the seventh bowler to be used, two catches and a couple of runs when these two met in this competition in Australia in 2022. He won’t be the seventh bowler used here so I like the over in that performance.
I say it all the time but whenever an associate side come into contact with a full member side with a wrist spinner the associate team tends to struggle against it and to be fair to Rishad Hossain he looks like a leggie with an absolutely huge future. I’m slightly surprised therefore that you can get 5/1 on him being the leading bowler for Bangladesh in this match. He was joint level with Mustafizur with three wickets in the first game and picked up a wicket against South Africa in New York. The Netherlands tend to be ok with pace as they face enough of that but top quality spin is a different story and I can’t ignore the price on the young leggie here.
Tips
Back L.van Beek’s Performance – Over 25.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back R.Hossain Top Bangladesh Bowler for a 1/10 stake at 6.00 with Unibet
