The competitive nature of T20 World Cup 2021 will officially end for someone in the first of the two matches in the tournament on Friday when Bangladesh meet the West Indies in Group 1 of the Super 12s in Sharjah.
Both teams have already lost their first two matches in this group so it might be that they are gone anyway but whoever loses here will officially be eliminated from semi-final contention even with two matches still to play.
Bangladesh
The signs were not great for Bangladesh when they stuttered through the first stage of this competition, dropping their opening match against Scotland before coming good in their last two matches. They have been blown away in the two matches they have played at this stage though, and on both occasions their bowling has gone around the park. The first time they had actually put up a decent looking total but the second occasion they were nowhere near good enough with the bat.
I suspect this is a better matchup for the Bangladesh batters than the England match was but time will tell on that one. They are going to have to come up with something different with the ball though because there isn’t enough mystery in their attack to keep this West Indies batting unit at bay, especially with the pitches at Sharjah beginning to offer little for the seam bowlers other than a bit of low bounce. Bangladesh could do with raising their level in the field too.
West Indies
It has been a nonsense of a title defence for West Indies so far and given the magnitude of their defeat to England at the start of this Super 12s stage it might be a defence which is already effectively over. They are not only going to need to win their last three matches and hope that results go their way, but they are going to have to win a couple of them by a heavy margin to address the significance of their negative run rate.
One thing West Indies have to do is find a way to put a score up on these pitches. It should involve Roston Chase coming into the team for someone for the bigger hitters to bat around but that would involve leaving a senior player out, which there seems to be a reluctance to do. To be fair to the West Indies bowlers, they have gone fairly well in the competition so far so if the batting unit can come to the party they are certainly capable of winning this match, whether it is enough down the line or not.
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Key Men
You would think it is going to be hard for Bangladesh to win this match if Shakib-al-Hasan isn’t very close to his best with the bat and the ball. He needs to be spot on with the ball because this West Indies batting has a run of left-handers in it and putting the ball in their arc is not an option.
Andre Russell has done absolutely nothing for West Indies in this competition so far and if he stays in the team they need him to up his game. He is a player who can address their run rate issue in the space of a couple of overs but needs to come to the party with the bat and the ball now.
Betting
I’m not going to bet on the match outcome here. This tournament is more about the toss than the cricket in that respect but there is a bet which looks to have plenty of mileage here and it comes in the form of the West Indies sixes market. We have a line of just 6.5 sixes here and I like the over a lot in this one. This is one of those lines and bets where the game path has no influence on it, unless Bangladesh were shot out for 60 or something silly which is unlikely.
Whether West Indies are batting first or second they have to go after sixes. They never need an invitation to smack sixes anyway this lot but with their run rate in tatters if they bat first they’ll need a score to have a chance of defending and if they bat second and have even a mid-range chase they emphasis will be on getting to it as quickly as possible. If they are chasing a sizeable score they’ll need to hit sixes to get close to it anyway so whichever way this match is played out, West Indies to hit seven sixes looks good to me, especially when you factor in they have just smoked a much better South Africa attack for eight sixes on a much bigger Dubai ground. This ground isn’t big enough for any West Indies batter so between them I fully expect them to clobber seven sixes, particularly when Sri Lanka hit this Bangladesh attack for nine sixes here earlier in the tournament.
Tips
Back West Indies – Over 6.5 sixes for a 5/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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