Home ›› 25 Apr 2023 ›› Sport
Bangladesh National Cricket Team have had a satisfactory ICC ODI World Cup Super League as they qualified with six matches in hand and currently sit fourth with the chance of finishing above current World Champions England.
The Tigers now only have one series left, which is against Ireland in England, set to be played from May 9 to 14.
Bangladesh have already played 21 out of their possible 24 matches, and have won 13 out of them, putting them on 130 points. Three more wins would take them to 160, five points ahead of England who have 155 points from their 24 matches.
While the final position will only be determined later, Bangladesh are likely to finish in the top half, even if they don’t finish in the top four, which Bangladesh One-Day Internationals skipper Tamim Iqbal had aimed for.
“If we win a couple of matches, we will probably qualify for the World Cup. But that’s not my target. My personal target is that Bangladesh should finish in the top four,” Tamim said after their 2-1 series win against Afghanistan in early 2022.
“Because if you want to claim that you have come here to win the World Cup in 2023 if you qualify as the seventh or eighth team, it does not make sense. When you finish in the top four, it does.”
Bangladesh are on the way to achieving Tamim’s target but if they do not, there will be some disappointment, especially because they lost some dead rubbers, losing crucial points.
Against both Sri Lanka in 2021 and Afghanistan in 2022, Bangladesh won their three-match series in the first two games but then lost their third to miss out on 20 important points.
However, the performance of Bangladesh throughout the campaign has been pretty impressive, especially their series win over South Africa at their den. Before this series, the Tigers had never won a single match in the African nation but in this series, they managed to win two to seal their first-ever away series win over the Proteas.
Other than that, the other series wins were pretty much expected of the Tigers as they beat West Indies, Sri Lanka, Afghan-istan, and Zimbabwe.
They might be disappointed with their 2-1 series defeat to England in their latest bout of the Super League, which ended their seven-year streak of not losing a series at home.
For now, the focus is on their series against Ireland but the bigger focus remains on the World Cup, where Bangladesh will eye their first-ever semi-final outing.
“We can’t relax just because we have qualified. That’s not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to do well in the World Cup, and for that, we have to do well in these series. If we are not doing well, we can find out where we have to improve,” Bangladesh skipper Tamim said in an interview with ESPNCricinfo.
He added in that interview, “Teams that have won trophies know exactly what needs to be done on a bigger stage. But teams like us who haven’t a trophy, we are confused sometimes about how to go about it. We will be playing some really good teams like India and England before the World Cup, which will give us an opportunity to see where we are at.”
A clean sweep of Ireland would see Bangladesh finish ahead of England, and while that might not be much, it would at least be an assurance of heading into the right direction ahead of the World Cup in India.
