ZCZC
BSP-12
CRICKET-BD-CARDIFF
Can Cardiff be Tigers happy hunting ground again?
DHAKA, June 7, 2019 (BSS)-Cardiff has a special place in Bangladesh’s
cricket folklore. The venue was involved in country’s two big moments which
earned them the world respect and made them what they are now-a true
cricketing giants.
Bangladesh’s cricket renaissance basically started from this venue when
they stunned the then all conquering Australia by five wickets in 2005, which
is still regarded as the biggest upset the cricket world has ever seen. A
ground, located at Wales, Cardiff is also the venue from which they announced
their status of true cricketing giants as they beat New Zealand by five
wickets to make the ICC Champions Trophy semifinal in 2017.
Few believed Bangladesh would chase down the target of 266, after being
reduced to 33-4. Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah Riyad put up an astonishing
224-run partnership for the fifth wicket to win the game quite dominatingly,
a victory that established them as the giants of cricket from a cricketing
team a force to reckon with.
Bangladesh played just those two matches in venue and won those to keep
a hundred percent winning record here.
If those two matches defined Bangladesh of what they are now, their
third match of the World Cup in which they are set to lock horns with hosts
and tournament favourite England in this venue presents them the chance to
keep them alive in the race of semifinal.
But England would pose different and bigger challenge considering they
are playing at the home and also the favourties of the tournament despite
losing their last game to Pakistan by 14 runs. That they were chasing a
target of 349 runs against Pakistan and fell short of 14 runs spoke a volume
of how strong they are. They are the team compiling and chasing 300 plus
total at quite regular basis since the 2015 World Cup, an event that was
nightmare for them, basically for Bangladesh.
The Tigers led their exit from that event, winning the match by 15 runs
and it created a huge uproar back at their home that forced the England
think-tank to bring wholesale changes to their white-ball cricket method.
However it paid dividends but Eoin Morgan’s side would never forget the
humiliation at the hands of Bangladesh. And even they won one match against
Bangladesh in World Cup out of three, that too in 2007. They were beaten by
Bangladesh in 2011 and 2015 World Cup, meaning they wouldn’t like to make it
third straight World Cup defeat.
So when stake is high for England, question has come to the fore, can
Cardiff be happy hunting ground for Bangladesh once again!
In their first two matches at The Oval, located in South London, against
South Africa and New Zealand, the Tigers got the backing of expatriate
Bangladeshis who outnumbered other countries fans to literally make the
ground a sea of red and green. Expatriate Bangladeshi fans are expected to
get behind Bangladesh when they take on England as they started reaching
Cardiff from different parts of England. But it is to see whether they can
outnumber English fans here.
However whatever it is, Bangladesh are oozing with confidence as they
believe they have the ability to beat any team in any place of the World. And
they have already proved it is not an exaggerated confidence. Bangladesh beat
South Africa by 21 runs, after posting their ODI highest 330 and with just
244 on the board in batting-friendly surface they showed their bowling
prowess against New Zealand before losing it narrowly by two wickets.
“Whoever it is, we know if we can play to our potential, we have the
ability to beat any side of the world. We can take the equation of venue,
wicket and others out if we play our best cricket,” said Bangladesh captain
Mashrafe Bin Mortaza.
“I don’t like to think what happened in the past. Every match is new, we
take every game one by one. The target is to play our best and win the game.
That’s it.”
BSS/SMP/BZC/1310HRS