Neither team has one Champions Trophy game so far but it’s a stat that
will mostly be altered. There’s no sign of rain in the air and in case
it’s a tie, we’d have probably had the best match of the tournament from
two teams on their way back home.
The Preview by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in Jaipur12-Oct-2006
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Everyone’s been talking about England v Australia on October 21 as a
prelude to the much-hyped Ashes but hang on a moment. Let’s first get
stuck into what promises to be the first real competitive match of the
Champions Trophy, a prelude to Zimbawbe’s tour to Bangladesh in early
November. It’s no doubt a basement battle but both teams are eager for a
psychological point, or three.Bangladesh’s recent tour to Zimbabwe was a mini-disaster. They went down
3-2 in the five-match one-day series and speculation was rife about
internal friction. For a team that’s occasionally stood up to challenge
top-quality opposition like Australia, India and Sri Lanka, it came as a
rude shock to be felled by an unheralded bunch. Habibul Bashar, who was
ruled out of the latter part of the series owing to a finger injury,
termed it as one of the most disappointing results of his career. He’s
made no bones about the fact that it was make-or-break time for
Bangladesh.Having gone in with an unchanged side for the opening two games – when
they surrendered to Sri Lanka and West Indies – Bangladesh are likely to
make a couple of changes to their squad. Mohammad Ashraful, who hasn’t
come off after being pushed up the order, and Syed Rasel, the left-arm
seamer, are likely to face the chop. Likely to come in their place are
Rajin Saleh and Mehrab Hossain, who’s yet to make his international debut.Zimbabwe too have had a bagful of batting worries – none of their batsmen
has yet crossed 30. Yet, faced against a lesser-quality bowling attack,
the likes of Brendon Taylor and Stuart Matsikenyeri are well capable of
the big ones. Unlike Bangladesh, who have an array of left-arm spinners to
call upon, Zimbabwe might rely primarily on their medium-pacers – Gary Brent has been approved as a replacement for Terrance Duffin who has flown home ill – and it’s a
fact that might work to their favour later in the evening. Chris Gayle,
who motored to a century yesterday, admitted that batting under lights
hadn’t been easy, with the pitch tending to keep a bit low and the ball
moving around disconcertingly.Neither team has one Champions Trophy game so far but it’s a stat that
will mostly be altered. There’s no sign of rain in the air and in case
it’s a tie, we’d have probably had the best match of the tournament from
two teams on their way back home.Bangladesh (likely) 1 Shahriar Nafees, 2 Rajin Saleh, 3 Aftab
Ahmed, 4 Habibul Bashar (capt), 5 Farhad Reza, 6 Saqibul Hasan, 7 Khaled
Mashud (wk), 8 Mohammad Rafique, 9 Abdur Razzaq, 10 Mashrafe Mortaza, 11
Mehrab Hossain jnr.Zimbabwe (from) 1 Prosper Utseya (capt), 2 Gary Brent, 3 Chamu
Chibhabha, 4 Elton Chigumbura, 5 Anthony Ireland, 6 Tafadzwa Kamungozi, 7
Hamilton Masakadza, 8 Stuart Matsikenyeri, 9 Tafadzwa Mufambisi, 10 Tawanda
Mupariwa, 11 Ed Rainsford, 12 Piet Rinke, 13 Gregory Strydom, 14 Brendan
Taylor
