When Bangladesh and Sri Lanka meet for their World Cup clash on Tuesday, the weather is going to be more of a concern for both the teams than the pitch itself. For, one can fight the difficulties posed by the pitch but amidst a heavy downpour, teams will have no choice but to split points – not the ideal result any team would like.
Last week too, it was Bristol — the venue at which Tuesday’s match is scheduled — which witnessed the first washout of the World Cup 2019 match scheduled against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This implies that Sri Lanka haven’t played a game since their dramatic win over Afghanistan.
However, a point from the washout has placed Sri Lanka at the sixth place in the points tally despite a thrashing they received from New Zealand in their opening game and just about dragging themselves to victory against Afghanistan.
But problems seem to love Sri Lanka at the moment. Their fastest bowler and one of their major weapons Nuwan Pradeep is unavailable for selection due to a hand injury and their batsmen have the worst average for any team featuring in the World Cup.
Here is a stat to make things clearer, their middle order comprising of Kusal Mendis and Angelo Mathews have together made just nine runs in two matches.
Bangladesh, meanwhile, need to put their World Cup campaign back on track after a promising start but a couple of defeats thereafter. However, there were important lessons to be learnt from the two defeats – Bangladesh’s spin heavy attack has been relatively ineffective and expensive allowing the opposition some easy runs. In English overcast conditions, perhaps Bangladesh could consider playing an extra seamer in their Playing XI and tweak in that strategy a little bit.
But here is another issue – their pace bowling has been far from effective picking up wickets after 90 balls on an average and allowing the opposition to settle down and follow their Plan A.
The only major thing that differentiates the two Asian teams set to take the field on Tuesday is their batting form. While Bangladesh batsmen have shown that they can score big, Sri Lanka have not turned up with the bat at all.
There could be a injury concern for Bangladesh however, as their all-rounder and man-in-form Shakib Al Hasan suffered a quadriceps injury during their last game against England in Cardiff and hasn’t attended the nets since then.
But all of that will matter only when the rains allow the game.
The match is scheduled to begin from 3 pm (IST) onwards in County Ground, Bristol.
Squads
Bangadesh: Mashrafe Mortaza (c), Abu Jayed, Liton Das (wk), Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan, Mohammad Mithun (wk), Mohammad Saifuddin, Mosaddek Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Shakib Al Hasan, Soumya Sarkar, Tamim Iqbal
Sri Lanka: Dimuth Karunaratne (c), Avishka Fernando, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Jeevan Mendis, Kusal Mendis (wk), Kusal Perera (wk), Thisara Perera, Nuwan Pradeep, Dhananjaya de Silva, Milinda Siriwardana, Lahiru Thirimanne, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay