Although the headlines say that Bangladesh and Ireland will be playing for pride only, I think the match has importance for Bangladesh. Bangladesh now eyes for the sixth position in the World Cup. To reach that Bangladesh needs to beat Ireland and West Indies. According to recent performances Bangladesh is favorite for today's match.

Today I watched the first half of the game in an Irish Pub in Berlin Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse with 15-20 Bangladeshis. Sadly we were short of Irish supporter except the pub owner. He was coming off an on to remind us that Ireland batsmen are playing well and Ireland has posted a competitive total (243 off 7). Well we had to agree to him as this is the case. Bangladeshi spin deportment looked inoculous in this pacy and bouncy pitch. We had hardly anything to cheer except for 3 runouts.

8 overs: Bangladesh 23/1 with opener Shahriar Nafees in Pavilion. They are finding the pace and bounce of the Irish bowlers hard to negotiate. Hope the frontliner batsmen can wear the new ball off before accelerating in the later overs just Ireland did. They had a low run-rate till the 30th over.

24 Overs: Bangladesh is in real trouble with 104/5. Their front-line batsmen are all out. They tried to play too many shots instead of nudging around for singles like what Ireland did. Ireland is playing better here and they deserve to win. Bangladesh need to think about their batting strategy.

Its all over for Bangladesh in 41.2 overs who could only get 169 runs losing ten wicket. Ireland played well today took the singles and twos under difficult circumstances - thats where Bangladesh batsmen lacked. They just carried on with their shots without judging the wicket. Well done Ireland.

Tags: Cricket, Bangladesh, Cricket World Cup 2007, Live Blogging