Bangladesh will take on cricket giant Australia on Saturday at 9:30 am (BST) in the ICC Cricket World Cup amid apprehensions of match washout due to storms encircling the Brisbane Cricket Ground – the match venue at Gabba.
The Bengal Tigers might miss an opportunity to see how well its recent tweaks on the batting front are working out by going up against a formidable Australian pace attack at the Gabba.
Bangladesh could well find itself in a three-way fight with Sri Lanka and England for the last two quarterfinal slots from Pool A, and to that end, a point gained from a rained out match could make a crucial difference.The World Cup’s local organising committee released a statement on Friday afternoon expressing doubts over the match going ahead.
“ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 organisers are working closely with authorities in Queensland regarding tomorrow’s match between Australia and Bangladesh given the extreme weather situation in the State and the forecasts for ongoing rain in Brisbane,” a spokesman said to ESPN. “Our thoughts are with the people affected.”
“However as there is no reserve day for pool matches, we’ll continue to prepare in the hope that the match can go ahead. The ICC match officials will make a decision on the match tomorrow based on conditions at the time. A match can be successfully completed if each side has minimum of 20 overs which means that it is still possible to achieve a result with a start after the scheduled innings break.”
A no-result would be a considerable boost to Bangladesh’s chances of progressing from Group A, particularly after England’s dismantling by New Zealand in Wellington on Friday.
Earlier, Bangladesh made a flying start to their World Cup campaign beating ICC associate Afghanistan by an emphatic 105 runs while the co-host Australia started their mission crushing England by 111 runs.
The past record is overwhelmingly in favour of Australia which met Bangladesh on 19 occasions. Of those, Australia won 18 times, including victories in previous World Cup meetings, in 1999 and 2007.
If a stroke of meteorological luck makes even a curtailed game possible, it’s almost certain that Bangladesh will face an all-pace attack.
Bangladesh’s bowlers were quietly impressive at the Manuka Oval in Canberra, but they will have to deal with the depth of Australia’s batting.
There will be likely a vital change in Bangladesh squad with Taijul Islam replacing Mominul Haque.
Michael Clarke coming in to lead the side in place of George Bailey makes the Aussie line-up even more daunting while Pat Cummins spotted for no 11 to replace Josh Hazlewood.
Bangladesh squad (Probable): Tamim Iqbal, Anamul Haque, Soumya Sarkar, Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Sabbir Rahman, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza (captain), Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed and Rubel Hossain.
Australia squad (Probable): David Warner, Aaron Finch, Shane Watson, Michael Clarke (captain), Steve Smith, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins – UNB
