Oman captain Sultan Ahmed is confident of upsetting the odds and beating Bangladesh in their final game of World T20 qualifying Group A on Sunday, saying his side fear no-one.
The match will be the first time that Oman face a full-member team and represents a huge opportunity for Sultan and his men to advance into the main tournament.
After their match with Netherlands was washed out on Friday, Oman are now in position to qualify with a win over the Asia Cup runners-up, should the rain continue to fall as expected and deny Bangladesh and Ireland a game.
That would leave both Bangladesh and Oman level on 3 points at the top of the table, the winner going on to the next round barring any further weather complications.
“We are pretty confident after beating Ireland and we are very confident that we, Insha’Allah, will beat Bangladesh in our last game,” said the Oman skipper.
“We played good cricket in Ireland and Scotland [to qualify] and we beat Hong Kong 3-2 in a series at ICC Academy.
“The atmosphere here is very good for us.”
Dutch captain Peter Borren cut a more desolate figure speaking to press after the washout, his frustration at exiting the tournament after one defeat and a washout very clear.
“It’s very emotional in the dressing room. The guys have put a lot of work into this, going back to a year ago and the qualifiers in Ireland and Scotland where we shared the trophy and played some very good cricket,” said Borren.
#NET are OUT of #WT20 after this afternoon's abandoned match, will the weather gods be kinder for #BANvIRE? pic.twitter.com/fiLrruDohY
— ICC (@ICC) March 11, 2016
“To sit here now after three hours of cricket against Bangladesh where we came up short is extremely disappointing.
“We can’t do anything about the weather but there are questions about how much we’ve had to have done to get to this stage as it is where we’ve won an awful lot of games but an eight run loss to Bangladesh and we’re gone is hard to take.”
