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T20 World Cup: Can Bangladesh sign off with an upset?

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Bangladesh players celebrate a wicket against South Africa. (AFP)

Bangladesh players celebrate a wicket against South Africa. (AFP)

Australia's batting has looked vulnerable on UAE pitches

Published: Wed 3 Nov 2021, 9:44 PM

  • By
  • Sumit Chakraberty

Thursday afternoon’s game between Australia and Bangladesh in Dubai has the tantalizing prospect of producing an upset. Bangladesh have lost all four of their Super 12 games, but were in a winning position in two of them. They have a reputation of being giant-killers in ICC tournaments, and may still have one final kick left in them, with nothing to lose. Australia, on the other hand, may be on edge, knowing that a loss in one of their last two matches — against Bangladesh and the West Indies — would seal the second position in Group 1 for South Africa, who have a much better net run rate.

BATTING VULNERABILITY

Australia’s batting has looked vulnerable on UAE pitches. They were bowled out for 125 in Dubai by England, and lost five wickets against South Africa in Abu Dhabi, as they reached a low target of 119 with only two balls to spare. Their only good batting performance was against Sri Lanka in Dubai, but that was with the aid of dew in an evening game. Thankfully, dew will not be a factor in Thursday’s day game, so the batting of both teams will be tested equally. It will be a chance for Australian opener David Warner to show that his knock of 65 against Sri Lanka, coming after a long sequence of failures, wasn’t a one-off in easier conditions. Potential match-winner Glenn Maxwell is yet to come good. Steven Smith has been steady without being able to accelerate beyond a run a ball. In fact, skipper Aaron Finch has been the only convincing one so far. They will need more batsmen to fire to harbour hopes of winning the title.

BOWLING ADVANTAGE

The Dubai wicket favours pace bowlers, and Australia have a clear superiority with the trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood. They could add a fourth specialist pacer, Kane Richardson, in place of left-arm spinner Ashton Agar, given the conditions and an opposition more adept at playing spin than pace. Bangladesh will counter with the tall and speedy Taskin Ahmed, who rattled South Africa with two early wickets. Three overs with the new ball by Ahmed could set the game up nicely.

TWEAKER MATCH-UP

Bangladesh have two good tweakers in left-armer Nasum Ahmed and off-spinner Mehidy Hasan. But there’s not much turn on the Dubai wicket and it’s wrist-spinners who can exploit the bounce on it. There, Australia have a trump card in leg-spinner Adam Zampa, who has been a wicket-taker in the tournament. Bangladesh is paying the price of preferring finger-spinners to leg-spinners in their domestic league, because the former tend to have lower economy rates.

BANGLA WEAKNESS

The Bangladesh batting will rely on the experienced Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah in the middle order. Soumya Sarkar hasn’t fulfilled his promise. And opener Liton Das has flattered to deceive. He anchored the chase against the West Indies on a tricky track in Sharjah, but fell agonizingly short with the finish in sight, as the 6-foot-7-inch Jason Holder plucked out his attempted sixer.

THE TOSS-UP

It may be better to chase even though it’s a day game, because it’s good to know the winning target in bowler-friendly conditions. South Africa won with 10 balls to spare in a chase of 144 in a day game in Dubai. But that was because of a strange innings of 16 in 35 balls by West Indies opener Lendl Simmons, who got dropped after that game. So it could get interesting if Bangladesh bat first and post a score of 160, putting scoreboard pressure on the Aussies in a must-win game.

Sumit Chakraberty is a writer based in Bengaluru. Write to him at chakraberty@gmail.com



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