We move back to Group 1 of the Super Eights in the T20 World Cup for the double header of action on Saturday and the day game takes us to Antigua where India will be looking to book their spot in the semi-final when they go up against Bangladesh.
Bangladesh lost their first game of the second stage of the competition so they will know that they have to win this if they are going to keep their campaign alive. Any India win will put them through to the last four such was the margin of victory in their opener.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh deserve a lot of credit for making it through to this stage when you would suggest they were third favourites in their initial group but having done so they will be disappointed with their batting effort in their opening Super Eights match against Australia. We are at the stage of the competition where scores of 140 aren’t going to cut it and you have to bat smarter than they did to get themselves up to a score which they could defend.
Bangladesh need to either send someone out to be aggressive at the top of the order or they need their top order to put partnerships together and set the innings up for the last six to eight overs. We have seen in this competition that they don’t need over par totals to be competitive because their bowlers are going very well but poor totals like the one they put up in the first game won’t cut it. With their tournament on the line here the batters have to deliver a better showing.
India
India haven’t had the smoothest path through to this part of the competition, I don’t think any team who embarked on the USA leg of the tournament has, but they haven’t lost a match and with the exception of a few overs against USA they have largely cruised through the games that they have played and should be nice and ready to attack the remainder of the event as they go about finally ending the 17-year wait to get their hands back on this trophy.
I guess the one question that you would ask of this India side is how they will cope if and when they are finally put under pressure in the tournament or if for example someone got after Jasprit Bumrah and managed to take him down. That is easier said than done of course but he is clearly the standout performer in this bowling unit. The Indian batting hasn’t truly fired like we might have expected it to so far but now we are in the Caribbean that should change.
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Team News
Bangladesh took a batter out of their side for the match against Australia and sent Rishad Hossain up to pinch hit. That plan didn’t work at all so they will either make a change to the batting or send Shakib in earlier to control the pace of the innings better.
You wouldn’t think India would be changing too much for this match. With this being a day game the third spinner will probably be beneficial to them so there is every chance that the tournament favourites go in unchanged.
Betting
I would expect Bangladesh to bat a lot better here. The Indian attack is more on a par with what they usually face and these two sides have faced off enough in white ball cricket and against each other in the IPL and things for there to be no real surprises. I don’t think the pitch in Antigua is playing too many tricks either. The odd ball is turning sharply but at this stage of the competition you would expect that but I see no reason why this won’t be a reasonably high scoring game.
The boundary line for this one is 34.5 which I think it still a little on the low side. If India bat first they are naturally going to be aggressive as they look to play themselves into form while Bangladesh know that they have to score runs here because their tournament is on the line. There is a familiarity to these two teams which should allow Bangladesh to hit more than the 14 boundaries they hit against Australia in the last game but even then a similar line was on its way to being covered before the rain came. In modern cricket I don’t think it is asking too much for this line to be covered on what is still a relatively small ground.
Tips
Back Over 34.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
