Saxton Oval sees engrossing encounter as Tigers take on Scotland Thursday

Last updated: March 4, 2015

Nelson, New Zealand (BBN)-The Saxton Oval will witness an engrossing encounter Thursday morning as Bangladesh will take on Scotland in the 27th match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.
The match will start at 4:00am (BST) at Pool A in Nelson of New Zealand.
Bangladesh would eye victory against the struggling Scotland to keep their quarterfinal hopes alive.
If Bangladesh defeat Scotland, who have lost all three matches so far, then the Asian Tigers would be a win away from the quarterfinals.
Bangladesh need to win two of their last three matches and their next opponents are England, who are languishing at number six having lost three matches out of four.
Bangladesh and Scotland are two of the lower-ranked teams in Pool B which consists of England, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and Afghanistan.
Only Afghanistan is seeded below Bangladesh, besides Scotland.
Despite, the teams being ranked on the lower side, it is unlikely to be an evenly contested battle as Bangladesh boasts records way better than Scotland.
Cricket Country adds: Going by previous record and on recent form it is Bangladesh who will enter the match as favourites.
In the four ODIs the teams have played against each other, Bangladesh has won thrice, with a rain induced draw providing respite for Scotland in the fourth.
Scotland will be hopeful put an end to the winless streak.
Scotland know what Bangladesh are dreaming of but they have vowed to make life tough for the Tigers.
Though, the both teams have played a combined total of just 39 matches on cricket’s biggest stage, they eye win over each other.
When Bangladesh and Scotland face off in Nelson, none of them will be worrying too much about relative amounts of big-match experience.
The points table in Pool A is such that Bangladesh has a tangible shot at making the quarterfinals, while Scotland will be very eager to translate spunky performances into points.
Bangladesh has depended largely on the experienced trio of Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim so far.
The 105-run win over Afghanistan in their opening game was followed by a washed out affair against Australia in Brisbane thanks to Cyclone Marcia, resulting in points being shared between both sides.
But playing Sri Lanka the week after, Bangladesh failed to subjugate an assault from Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara, going down by 92 runs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, adds ICC cricket.com.
"Definitely when you lose, you lose a bit of confidence,” Mortaza said at the pre-match press conference.
“So this match is a great opportunity for us to win this match and go with some confidence against England," the Bangladesh captain said.
The bright spots in the bowling department for Bangladesh have come in the form of Mortaza and Taskin Ahmed so far, with the spinners playing a more background role.
But Preston Mommsen, the Scotland captain, said on match eve that his side was wary of Bangladesh’s spinners, and prepared to take them on.
"We are expecting a full spin attack from the Bangladeshis or we're preparing for that at least," he said.
"In the last 12 months we've spent a lot of time training in sub-continental conditions against spin. We had a 10-day batting camp with Matthew Maynard in Dubai where the main focus was playing against spin. We're fully prepared. We've ticked all the boxes we need to tick."
Scotland comes into this game on the back of a heart-breaking one-wicket loss to Afghanistan in a match it looked in their control of for most part, before the tailenders rallied around Samiullah Shenwari to script a special win for the World Cup debutants in the last over.
Scotland showed promise in its other two defeats too, against New Zealand and England.
The two sides have played each other four times in One-Day Internationals, with Bangladesh winning three encounters, including in the ICC Cricket World Cup 1999, when it beat Scotland to bag a first World Cup win.
The last time the two sides were slated to play was in Glasgow, but the match was abandoned due to rain.
But in their most recent meeting, in 2012, Scotland beat Bangladesh by 34 runs in a Twenty20 International at Sportpark Westvliet in Hague.
"The only time I've played them was in the T20I in the Netherlands, where we played good cricket on that day and things went our way and we came out on top," said Mommsen.
"We have good memories of playing against Bangladesh. However, we know they're a quality international team. They're a full member nation. There will be more pressure on them.
"They're expected to win this game. They want to get two points out of this game. But at the same time we know it's a brilliant opportunity for Scotland as an associate team to play against a full member and have the opportunity to beat a full member. We are right up for this game."
Espncricinfo adds: Bangladesh are used to the roar of an expectant crowd - even in Canberra and Melbourne they had a taste of that - but Nelson will provide a very different environment for a crucial match.  
The only sound one could hear after the crackle of the ball hitting the bat was crickets and other bugs.
All sounds in Nelson's Saxton Oval have an individuality.
Noise, the kind that keeps buzzing across the subcontinent, is probably an alien concept here.
In the point of weather, it was predicted that weather will be mostly sunny with the temperatures vacillating between 19 and 27 degrees Celsius during the match.
TEAM
Bangladesh: Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Anamul Haque, Arafat Sunny, Mahmudullah, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Nasir Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Shakib Al Hasan, Soumya Sarkar, Tajiul Islam, Tamim Iqbal, Taskin Ahmed.
Scotland: Kyle Coetzer, Calum McLeod, Freddie Coleman, Matt Machan, Preston Mommsen (capt), Richie Berrington, Mathew Cross (wk), Josh Davey, Alasdair Evans, Majid Haq, Iain Wardlaw, Michael Leask, Rob Taylor, Safyaan Sharif
BBN/AS/AI-04Mar15-9:00pm (BST)

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