After the opening matches of Group B of the T20 World Cup were played on Tuesday, it is the turn for the first matches in Group A on Wednesday. This looks much the more competitive of the groups and that should make for some really good matches.
The first match of the two on Wednesday sees a confident Bangladesh, fresh off their run to the final of the Asia Cup, taking on a Netherlands side who love nothing more than seeing off the big boys in these events. Throw in the picturesque, mountainous setting of Dharamsala and we’ve got everything we need for a great occasion.
Bangladesh will only have landed in India on Monday after their exploits in the Asia Cup but you wouldn’t think they would take too long to adjust to the conditions. It might be a little lower here in terms of bounce and things but nothing too drastic.
The Netherlands have been in India much longer and have played a couple of warm up matches. They lost to Afghanistan but put up a fair fight and then looked in a decent position against Scotland before the rain arrived but I’m sure they got what they needed to from those matches.
Bangladesh will be hoping that the new Sussex signing Mustafizur Rahman is fit for this match but if he isn’t then the seam department is still well catered for with Al-Amin Hossain, Taskin Ahmed and the skipper Mashrafe Mortaza around. Tamim Iqbal is back in the side.
The Netherlands look to have their side sorted although there is probably one spot left in the bowling attack for them to decide upon. Vivian Kingma, Logan van Beek and Paul van Meekeren look to be battling it out for that spot.
The Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala is the venue for the whole of this group. This is usually a good place to bat. The boundaries aren’t huge and the altitude makes the ball go a bit further but that same altitude can account for a bit of swing so there is often a bit for everyone which makes for good cricket.
These two sides have met twice in T20 internationals. Both were in 2012 and they won a match each but how much we can take from those games remain to be seen. We’ve seen in the last 12 months that Bangladesh are a different side now. I expect Bangladesh to win the game but given that they’ve not been in India long it might be more about the win than a big win so I’ll leave the match alone.
In those two T20 games between the two Tamim Iqbal made scores of 69* and 50 against a pretty similar Netherlands attack to the one they will be fielding in this match so he seems to enjoy what comes down at him.
The Bangladeshi opener has been in good nick in 2016. He put together a very impressive set of scores in the Pakistan Super League and while his Asia Cup results weren’t so good he played Pakistan and India with two of the better new ball pairings around. I don’t see anything of that quality in this Dutch attack.
Ladbrokes have a 21.5 run line slated up next to Tamim’s name and all the evidence suggests that is well within reach for an opener who is a better player now than he was four years ago.
WON – Back T.Iqbal Over 21.5 runs for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
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