India takes on Bangladesh in the late night encounter of the second day of the second ICC World T20 at Trent Bridge. India will go into the game having won one of their warm-up games against Pakistan, and losing the other against the Kiwis. Bangladesh, on the other hand, will derive confidence from the fact that they ran most of the test playing nations close while beating Netherlands and Scotland in the process.
The Sports Pundit Fantasy experts would have some questions regarding India’s composition, especially with respect to Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan, and more importantly about the overall composition of the playing eleven. For one, Zaheer Khan barely looks like he will be fit to play anytime soon in the tournament, let alone against Bangladesh o Saturday. Sehwag, on the other hand, may just get back into the eleven, but his batting order isn’t fixed, and if Dhoni has it his way, Rohit Sharma may well displace Sehwag at the top, essentially meaning that Sehwag’s chances of getting a big score also dwindle that much faster. My personal favourite would be someone between Sharma and Suresh Raina, though, Gautam Gambhir looks to be getting out of his lean patch too.
For Bangladesh, Mohammad Ashraful needs to fire and in all fairness, his style of batting is suited to this format. Yet, Shakib-al-Hasan’s consistency and his ability to bowl his four overs means that I will prefer him. Mashrafe Mortaza seems a little low on confidence ever since he was smashed for all those runs by Rohit Sharma, and it may not be that good an idea to get him on as the opening bowler against the same batsman, this time representing India!