Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-Wednesday is going to be a great day for fans at the Cricket World Cup 2015 as Bangladesh will play their opening match at the tournament when they take on Afghanistan.
Like all the four major South Asian teams, Bangladesh have plenty of support in Australia, particularly around Sydney.
Media reports said that from Sydney a lot of fans are expected to make the drive to Canberra.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza was optimistic of receiving backing from the stands during the match, though the same confidence was not shown during the warm-ups.
“The kind of squad we have, I am confident we can reach the quarter-finals,” said the captain.
Bangladesh’s short batsmen would be wary of Afghanistan’s fast bowlers who can generate good pace and bounce and a hard Manuka Oval pitch would assist their kind of bowling.
In fact, the two teams have already faced off once, last year in an Asia Cup match in March, and it was the sprightly Afghans who came out trumps, shocking their regional big brothers by 32 runs.
The Tigers will now make their bow in the 50-over tournament in Canberra, and the Pool A encounter that gets underway at 9:30am (BST) Wednesday.
For bringing the success, the Tigers bank on Shakib Al Hasan, arguably the best player who will take to the pitch in Canberra.
The 27-year-old left-arm spinner and left-hand batsman is the mainstay of the side and the ICC’s top-ranked all-rounder in all three formats of the game.
Left-arm spinner Taijul Islam recently recorded the best Test bowling figures ever for Bangladesh (8-39 against Zimbabwe) and could also be a threat to the Afghans.
On the other hand, the war-torn Afghanistan have made remarkable progress in recent years and have qualified for the last three World Twenty20 tournaments.
Bangladesh will feel they must defeat Afghanistan if they are to finish in the top four in Pool A and qualify for the last eight.
However, they struggled for much of 2014 and lost to Ireland in their final pre-World Cup warm-up match.
The onus has to be on Bangladesh here, given they are the Full Member side with nearly 15 years of Test history.
The Afghanistan fast bowlers are tall and quick.
The usually short Bangladesh batsmen will have to handle the extra bounce, something they are not used to at home and something they have been working on in the nets.
The likes of Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahim have the strokes, but it will be a matter of getting in first.
TEAM
Bangladesh: (probable) 1 Anamul Haque, 2 Tamim Iqbal, 3 Soumya Sarkar, 4 Mahmudullah, 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk) , 7 Sabbir Rahman/Nasir Hossain, 8 Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), 9 Taijul Islam, 10 Taskin Ahmed, 11 Rubel Hossain
Afghanistan (probable): 1 Javed Ahmadi, 2 Usman Ghani, 3, Asghar Stanikzai, 4 Najibullah Zadran, 5 Samiullah Shenwari, 6 Mohammad Nabi (capt), 7 Afsar Zazai (wk), 8 Gulbadin Naib/Mirwais Ashraf , 9 Dawlat Zadran, 10 Hamid Hassan, 11 Shapoor Zadran
BBN/ANS/ASI-17Feb15-8:10pm (BST)
