DHAKA, July 3, 2019 (BSS)-After being their semifinal hope crashed out following a 28-run loss to India on Tuesday, Bangladesh quickly fixed their goal to bow out the tournament with good note.
Bangladesh will play their last match of the group phase on July 5 at Lord’s where they will take on another Asian rivals Pakistan.
Since their landmark bilateral series victory over Pakistan, inflicting a 3-0 whitewash, Bangladesh regularly dominated them in the ODI cricket at least. Even they had the experience of beating Pakistan in Asia Cup last year.
But this time it might prove tougher since Pakistan have been in a form after a mediocre start to this World Cup. Nonetheless Bangladesh is hopeful of winning the game to wrap up their tournament successfully.
“The Pakistan game on Friday, I’m really looking forward to that game,” said Bangladesh coach Steve Rhodes.
“I think we beat them in the Asia Cup, and they’ll want to change that. We showed in some of the games we played this year, that we’re going to be a difficult side for Pakistan to beat. We know we’ll have to play well again because they’ve run into a little bit of form in the back ends of the tournament.”
Bangladesh never won more than three matches in the past three World Cups. They have already won three matches in this tournament too and one more victory would help them to win four matches in a single World Cup, what will be a consolation for them to some extent after missing out the last four spot, which was their eventual goal.
Rhodes said they are able to put up professional performance to beat Pakistan and they will leave no stone unturned to make it happen when they take on Pakistan at Lord’s on July 5.
“But we’re confident. We don’t want to leave these shores with a defeat against Pakistan. We want to leave these shores with a victory against Pakistan. So as far as we’ll go about it, hopefully very professional, and we’ll fight really, really hard. We’ll be desperate to get points against Pakistan.”
Bangladesh though lost four matches, they didn’t loss without fighting apart from the match against England, in which they were thumped by 106 runs.
Considering their form, Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza also echoed coach Steve Rhodes and hoped to end the tournament with a victory.
“We have played our best, and fans have been fantastic. Hopefully we will end on a good note,” he said.