The second half of the Cricket T20 World Cup double header on Wednesday is a repeat of the recent Asia Cup final as India meet Bangladesh in Group 2 of the event.
The roles are reversed in this match. In that final Bangladesh were the hosts with the crowd behind them but it will be India who enjoy that luxury here. They will need to take advantage of that as well because having lost their opening match of the tournament they have no room to fail again. Bangladesh know they have to win and win big else they are going home.
India were shocking in their first match particularly with the bat and although they were better against Pakistan in the second match they will be concerned at the form of some of their batsmen, or more pertinently the lack of that form. Those big players will get another chance to go well but they will need to.
Unless there is a late injury or illness it would be a huge surprise if India make changes for this match. It isn’t their style to make changes for the sake of it so I’m expecting an unchanged side.
Bangladesh came into the tournament with high expectations after their performance in the Asia Cup and the way they cruised through the qualifying group would only have heightened them but they have played a couple of ordinary matches so far in the main draw which has left their hopes hanging by a thread.
Their chances haven’t been helped by the losses of Taskin Ahmed and Arafat Sunny who have been suspended from bowling. That was probably the one thing they couldn’t afford and any side would struggle without their main strike bowler. Unless Tamim Iqbal is fit, and the consensus is he won’t be, Bangladesh are likely to be unchanged from their last match too.
The M Chinnaswamy in Bangalore is the venue for this match. Bangladesh have already played here and lost to Australia whereas India play here for the first time in the tournament. Usually this is a high scoring ground but with the huge temperatures in the area recently the pitches have been dry and offered more turn than we would expect.
That turn makes me think this will be a lower scoring match than normal on this ground. The spinners of both sides should come into play and India’s attack in these conditions is notoriously difficult to get away and score heavily from.
Not all of India’s gun batsmen are performing how they can do so there is a chance of this one being a lower scoring game than usual. With that in mind the boundaries line of 39.5 could be a trifle too high. It must be said the boundaries here are small but with so much spin being bowled I can see this match falling a few short of that target.
I would expect India to win the game. They’ve won all of the meetings between the two sides in this format but they are no value to back so for my final bet in the game I’ll take one in the top Bangladesh batsman market where I’m keen on Mahmudullah.
The all-rounder showed on this ground over the weekend that he can score quickly and we saw that in the Asia Cup final where he came in and top scored with an exciting cameo against this very opposition.
A repeat of either efforts should see him go close especially if Tamim Iqbal doesn’t play, as seems likely, so at 7/1 I’ll go with another big effort from Mahmudullah here.
WON – Back Under 39.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back them here:
Back Mahmudullah Top Bangladesh Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 8.00 with Bet365
Back him here:
