🏏ICC World Cup Bangladesh vs Netherlands, M 17, Super 12 Group 2 🏏

After watching last night's match, the WC is gaining momentum with millions of fans' showing interest with great enthusiasm, which is understandable. It'll be there in the history of cricket, as one of the greatest nail-biting matches! 😃

The Netherlands were the first team among the ones to make it to the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup to have won the first two of the three games played in the qualifying round and even though they would have liked those victories to come a little earlier.

UAE did them a favour beating Namibia in their final game for the Dutch to go ahead. It's not often that the Netherlands start as favourites against a Test-playing nation, but such has been Bangladesh's form in recent times in T20 cricket.

Bangladesh lost their only warm-up game to Afghanistan, failed to win a single game in Asia Cup and couldn't advance to the next stage, and also couldn't win a match in the recent tri-series in New Zealand. The Bangla Tigers' T20 cricket is in dire straits, and they wouldn't have asked for a better team than the Netherlands to start their campaign but unfortunately for them, the Dutch are the form team this time around.

The only problem for Dutch will be the fitness of veteran all-rounder Roelof van der Merwe, who was struggling in his side's last game against Sri Lanka.

BAN vs NED Probable Playing XI:

• Bangladesh: Najmul Hossain Shanto, Soumya Sarkar, Litton Das (wk), Shakib Al Hasan (c), Mosaddek Hossain, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Nurul Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Ebadot Hossain, Shoriful Islam/Nasum Ahmed
• Netherland: Vikramjit Singh, Max ODowd, Bas de Leede, Colin Ackermann, Tom Cooper, Scott Edwards(w/c), Roelof van der Merwe, Tim Pringle, Timm van der Gugten, Fred Klaassen, Paul van Meekeren

Netherlands might just be starting this game as favorites, and would fancy getting some points today after overcoming a tricky group in the qualifiers. They have a pretty solid bowling attack, leaning towards pace that suits the tracks of Australia. Batting has been a bit suspect, and the Dutch would hope for the likes of Scott Edwards, Tom Cooper and Vikramjit Singh to step up. The Dutch have the form but Bangladesh have the experience of having played on the big stage before. Who will come out on top today?

Thanks for the tag. Good luck to both teams

How does one top the absolute carnival of cricket that we witnessed last evening? Well, we can try but the bar for thriller of the tournament has been set way too high by India and Pakistan.

Now to get back to today where Bangladesh play their first game of the 2022 T20I World Cup against Netherlands.

Shakib Al Hasan’s side will consider themselves fortuitous after sneaking straight into the Super 12’s with direct qualification, as their form has taken a real nosedive in the past year or so.

They play slightly tepidly, have an aging squad and seem over reliant on individual brilliance to bail them out.

The two Dutch openers have scored some runs but that middle order has largely struggled. Bangladesh would want their new ball bowlers to make early inroads to put that middle order under pressure. Bas de Leede has been Netherlands' Player of the Match in their two wins so far. Keeping him at bay will be vital as well for the Asian side.

Netherlands do have a favourable matchup against the Bangladesh top order. Their seamers have been very good so far and they haven't allowed their three opponents so far to get away in the powerplay.

Pitch Conditions

The Bellerive Oval pitch has been generally good for batting, but it does slow down a little once the ball gets old. The spinners are likely to have an impact on the game. The captain who wins the toss may want to have a bowl first.

Thanks for the tag Madhu.🤗

May the best team win.

Cheers..

Hello and welcome to day 3 of the Super 12s, and if it's half as good as yesterday we're in for a hell of a ride! First up we have Bangladesh taking on Netherlands, and then straight after it's South Africa versus Zimbabwe. Both matches will be in Hobart, where the weather has been a little dicey, with Isam writing that neither side have been able to train all rain much due to the weather. And worse yet, the weather forecast isn't all that great for today either, though for the moment it's just overcast.

Alright then, let's get to the matter at hand. Bangladesh and Netherlands will both be looking at this a game they need to win in order to have a chance of going through to the semis, and from the talk pre-game both sides seem to be expecting a close-run affair. Indeed, Netherlands batter Tom Cooper has said he wouldn't see a win today as "an upset", while Bangladesh captain Shakib is wary of the threat posed by their opponents today.

And if you're wishing you'd been there, well we have the complete ball-by-ball breakdown of those epic final two overs, as well as the record breaking stats. While Alex Malcolm has possibly the next best thing to being there in person, in his fantastic piece where he claims there's never been anything quite like it at the MCG. And if that's a lofty claim, Kohli's own words only give it more credence. While his skipper, too, hailed it as "one of India's best" knocks. The reactions from the wider cricketing world, unsurprisingly, have been just as effusive.

But before we get into today's affairs, let's revisit yesterday, where Sri Lanka got off to a breezy start against Ireland, before, well… Kohli happened. I could wax lyrical about that knock all day, but not sure I could do much better than Sid Monga who broke down the innings quite simply - eight balls, 28 to get, and Kohli does a Kohli.

the Bangladesh batting coach, has also been speaking to the host broadcaster: "We played some good cricket during the tri-series. We faced Pakistan and New Zealand twice. We didn't win but we played some good cricket. There were concerns about the weather but it looks like it'll hold up. (On opening combination) It has been inconsistent with too many changes. We wanted Litton to play up but he has stayed at 3 and contributed with the bat. This game is important as we are expected to win it. We too expect to win this game. We haven't had much success in the last 12 months but we have played some good cricket. We have lost some of our experienced players but that has given opportunities to the younger guys to step up."