Australia will face an eliminated Bangladesh on Thursday, hoping to strengthen their case for a semi-finals berth. Aaron Finch and company are currently placed third on the Group 1 table with four points in three games and a massive win could help them leapfrog South Africa to the second spot.
Bangladesh have already been knocked out of the tournament. They have lost all four games in the Super 12 stage so far, their latest coming against South Africa.
Australia’s loss against England, who now top the table, highlighted their many vulnerabilities. While skipper Finch got runs at the top, the other top-order batsmen – David Warner and Steve Smith – failed miserably. The middle-order in Matthew Wade, Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis also could not make much of a difference. Questions were raised when left-arm spinner Ashton Agar replaced Mitchell Marsh in the playing eleven against England. It remains to be seen if the team sticks to the same combination.
Australia were restricted to 125 runs, a target England, powered by Jos Buttler, chased with 50 balls to spare.
Australia had lost the T20 series 4-1 they played in Bangladesh earlier this year. Hence, there is no clear favourite for this game. Asked about the defeat in Bangladesh, Agar said the conditions were very different there. They have also put the loss to England behind them as they look to win their remaining two games.
“We have a very different looking side (to the one played in Bangladesh), and the wickets certainly aren’t playing like those pitches that we played on over there.
“We’ll see what happens, I guess. We’ll go out there and we’ll try and put our best foot forward. We need to win, and the guys are really excited to play and really want to win, as well. It should be a good game,” said Agar in the pre-match conference.
On the other hand, Bangladesh will want to finish tehe tournament with a win. They’ve come close to the finishing lines a number of times, but the last stretch has been a problem. Their batting has let them down through out the tournament and they can only go up from the 84 all out against South Africa. The absence of injured all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has also disturbed the balance of the side.
Against South Africa, only opener Liton Das and down the order Mahedi Hasan put up a semblance of fight with the bat.
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“We haven’t played according to our potential. We are better than this,” pacer Taskin Ahmed said about his team after its ouster.
“We lost games that we were supposed to win. Maybe we are not as good as other T20 sides, but even then we didn’t play up to our potential. I think we could have played better than this,” he opined.
Squads: Aaron Finch (c), Pat Cummins, Ashton Agar, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa, Mitchell Swepson.
Mahmudullah (c), Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Soumya Sarkar, Liton Das, Afif Hossain, Mohammad Naim, Nurul Hasan, Shamim Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Mohammad Saifuddin, Shoriful Islam, Mahedi Hasan, Nasum Ahmed.
Match starts 3.30 PM IST.
