The first match of the main draw of the Asia Cup promises to be a great occasion on Wednesday when the tournaments hosts meet the pre-event favourites when Bangladesh take on India in Dhaka.
Both sides have four matches in the tournament with which to win as many as is needed to make the final but even with that many games it would be a big boost for whoever gets off to a winning start so I’m expecting both sides to be at their best for this opener.
India go into the competition off the back of recent series wins in Australia and against Sri Lanka although they will know they were exposed a little against Sri Lanka and their team director Ravi Shastri has been quite vocal publicly about the need to get off to a winning start.
Bangladesh have drawn a couple of T20 series with Zimbabwe in recent times which isn’t the best form line on paper it has to be said but they showed in the 50 over World Cup how they have improved on the big stage and here is another chance to show the world that.
Virat Kohli was rested for the Sri Lanka matches but he is back in the India squad for this tournament and he will probably replace Ajinkya Rahane at 3. MS Dhoni will need to decide whether to play the extra spinner or stick with the winning bowling attack from that recent series.
Bangladesh were 2-0 up when they went without the services of Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim, the latter through injury Mushfiqur is likely to line up in this match for the home side. The absence of Tamim could be a big blow. If they are to win here Rahim, Shakib-al-Hasan and Mashrafe Mortaza will need big matches.
The Shere Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka will host the rest of this tournament. The ground held Monday’s final two qualifiers and looked to be playing nicely although as you would expect spin was very prevalent especially the longer the day went on.
It is an interesting ground for Bangladesh to decide to host the tournament on because their record here is wretched with just four wins from 14 matches. India have won five out of the six T20 games they have played here with the one they lost being the 2014 World T20 final.
You would think India are good things for this match but you won’t get too rich backing them and at this stage of the competition I’m a little reluctant to be taking them on a handicap especially given how poorly they began the Sri Lanka series but thankfully a number of player performance bets have been priced up and we can get stuck into them.
The one which interests me the most is Sabbir Rahman. His line is 26 which might be a few points too low. He is a handy player who seems to go unnoticed in this side but with no Tamim at the top of the order he will have a big role to play at number three.
Sabbir has some good T20 form behind him. He averages just over 28 with the bat so an average innings covers this line but he has scores of 51*, 50, 46, 43* and 26 in his short career so far so he clearly has talent with the bat.
It isn’t unheard of that his leg breaks come into play and if India get off to a flyer as they have been known to do he might get to turn his arm over. He recently took three wickets against Zimbabwe so that is another string to his bow and he’s a decent enough fielder too so that 26 has plenty of chances of being covered and I’ll go over on that line.
WON – Back Sabbir Rahman’s Performance Pts – 26&Over for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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