March 31, 2007

Australia vs Bangladesh: Live Blogging

Wet outfield delayed the start of the match. According to Andrew Miller of Cricinfo:
"There are some very soggy-looking puddles in the outfield at the moment. A bit overcast but blue skies are threatening to come through."
We have another rain affected match. The match will be interesting as Australia is planning to take revenge of their upset defeat to Bangladesh two years ago at Cardiff.

Update: This does not look good. Another pitch inspection scheduled at GMT 16:00. I don't know whether there will be any play today. If there is any it won't be more than 20 overs game. So thanks to the rain Bangladesh has brought the tradition of playing 20-20s in the World Cup. Remember their previous match against Bermuda was reduced to 21 overs each team.

Good News! We have a game. It starts at 18:30 GMT and it will be a 22 overs game. Ricky Ponting has won the toss and decided to bowl first to use the wet conditions. Habibul Bashar feels that 180 will be a good score on this pitch. Lets see what Tamim and Ashraful can do today. Its hitting time baby!

10 Overs: Bangladesh pushed the panic button early and lost 4 of their stroke makers. 41/4 is not what they would have liked. The good old McGrath got three of them with intelligent bowling. They could have seen out McGrath first then started hitting. I reckon the score will be 120 if Bangladesh can play 22 overs - not enough to stop Australia from winning.

22 Overs: Bangladesh could get only 104/6 and Australia bowled extremely well. With the big guns out only Mashrafe Mortaza could show some solid hitting scoring 25 of 17 balls.

Now the thing is that how many overs will Australia need to get this much run. Can Bangladesh get some early wickets and put Australia in some bit of trouble? I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Australia finished the game in style in 13.5 overs without losing any wickets. Hayden and Gilchrist scored more then one run per ball and the Bangladeshi bowlers did not have any effect on them. But the wicket keeper Mushfiq missed a catch off Gilchrist - you should not do it at this level.

However this result was expected and Bangladesh can concentrate on its next game.

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