Asia Cup 2018: No rest for Bangladesh while India deal with injuries

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  • India have been rocked by injuries big time.

    After a morale-boosting win against their arch-rivals Pakistan, India will open their Super Four campaign in the Asia Cup on Friday when they take on Bangladesh in Dubai.

    With Sri Lanka and Hong Kong knocked out following the culmination of the group stage, four teams remain in contention for the continent’s top crown.

    With no rooms for error left for the remaining four teams anymore, we look at the talking points ahead of the Super Four opener.

    INJURIES ROCK INDIA

    India might have kept a perfect slate in the group stages with two wins out of two against Hong Kong and Pakistan, but it has come at a big cost. Already without the services of their talismanic skipper Virat Kohli for the tournament, India have now lost Hardik Pandya, Shardul Thakur and Axar Patel to injuries.

    The three injured players have been replaced by Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar and Siddarth Kaul who flew to Dubai on Thursday to join the team. While Thakur and Patel did not feature in India’s win over Pakistan on Wednesday, Pandya did and his replacement Jadeja will be expected to get match ready just one day into his arrival at Dubai.

    It will be interesting to see how Rohit Sharma and his men deal with these late and unexpected upheavals on Friday against the Tigers.

    India have lost the services of all-rounder Hardik Pandya.

    India have lost the services of all-rounder Hardik Pandya.

    NO REST FOR THE TIGERS

    While India have to deal with the late change in personnel, Bangladesh have a headache of their own. Less than 24 hours after taking on Afghanistan at Abu Dhabi in their final group clash, Mashrafe Mortaza and his men will have to take the field against India at Dubai.

    While the travel time between the two cities is not much, it will still be an arduous task for the Tigers given the lack of down time between the two matches. It is no wonder then that Mortaza has slammed the scheduling of the tournament, especially with regards to India having the luxury of playing all their Super Four games at Dubai.

    What’s more, the Tigers fielded a strong playing XI against Afghanistan on Thursday despite the game being a dead rubber. Only two players – Mushfiqur Rahim and Mustafizur Rahman – were granted a rest and that decision could backfire for the side given the heat and humidity currently prevailing over the UAE at the moment.

    Mushifiqur is among only two Bangladesh players who have been rested.

    Mushifiqur is among only two Bangladesh players who have been rested.

    CHANCE FOR BANGLADESH TO AVENGE NIDAHAS LOSS

    The last time these two teams met, Dinesh Karthik’s last-ball six broke Bangla hearts and clinched the Nidahas T20 tri-series for India at Colombo in March this year. The two teams have been fairly well matched in the ODI format in recent times with India going on to win three of the last five encounters while Bangladesh have triumphed twice.

    The last ODI meeting between the two sides came in the ICC Champions Trophy in England last year with India prevailing handsomely by nine wickets at Birmingham.

    India are the No2 ranked ODI outfit in the world currently while the Tigers have improved significantly in limited-overs cricket over the past few years. Bangladesh recently triumphed in the away ODI series against the West Indies and were mighty impressive in their group stage win over Sri Lanka. As such, it will not be an easy task for Rohit’s men who were highly unconvincing in their win over Hong Kong.

    EXPECTED TEAMS

    BANGLADESH: Liton Das, Mominul Haque, Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Mithun, Mushfique Rahim (wk), Mahmudullah, Mosaddek Hossain, Mehidy Hasan, Mashrafe Mortaza (c), Rubel Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman.

    INDIA: Rohit Sharma (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah.

    VENUE: Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai

    TIME: 15:30 GST

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