When Tigers will take on South Africa in their fifth match tomorrow at the Wankhede Stadium Mumbai, no more option left for them to play in the semifinal.
All the high hopes of Tigers were shattered after suffering three defeats in a row in their previous four outings.
Interestingly, it will be the fifth match for both the South Africans and Bangladesh in this World Cup when they played each other four times in previous World Cup tournaments.
In their four meetings in the World Cup both the sides won two matches each, when Bangladesh would have a great inspiration from their win over the Proteas in 2019.
At the Kennington Oval, London, Bangladesh scored 330 runs and booked South Africa for 309 runs to win the match by 21 runs.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh despite making a winning start in the tournament with a convincing six-wicket victory over Afghanistan could not keep up the momentum.
Tigers’ best performances in the ongoing ICC Men’s World Cup tournament was so far against Afghanistan when they bowled out the Afghans for a paltry 156 runs and chased the winning target by 34.4 overs losing four wickets at the Himachal Prodesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharmasha. Apart from the first match, either the bowlers or the batters translate their capability properly in any of the last three matches, almost in every match their dismal performances disappointed all.
Tigers could even failed to show their fighting spirit in any of the last three matches to have a respectable result, when in the second match Bangladesh’s bowlers claimed nine wickets against England but by this time the reigning champions threw a massive target of 364 to chase.
The batters miserably flopped when four top order batters could not reach to double digit including the captain Shakib Al Hassan. Only Litton Das and Mushfiqur Rahim were two notable scorers with 76 and 51 runs respectively. England won their only one match out of their four previous matches and that was against Bangladesh when Afghanistan also defeated England.
In the third match against New Zealand, the scenario was similar when both the batters and the bowlers could not shine. After batting first Tigers managed 245 runs before being all out and New Zealand reached the target by 42.5 overs when bowlers could take only two wickets.
Against India, the condition of Bangladesh was more embarrassing, as this time also after batting first Tigers were bundled out for only 257 runs when their bowling were also very ordinary, as India comfortably reached to winning target by 41.3 overs losing three wickets with Virat Kohli hammering a 97 balls 103 runs.
Bangladesh will face the sensational batting line up in this World Cup South Africa, who scored 1345 runs in their previous four matches with three wins and a loss.
The highflying South Africa saw a big blow when they suffered defeat to minnows Netherlands but it was only an upset, as England went down to Afghanistan.
However, both the batters and the bowlers of Bangladesh will face huge challenges against their South African counterparts.
Apart from the upset of Netherlands match, the Proteas batters scored 428 runs against Sri Lanka in the first match and bowled out the opponents for 326, in the second match they scored 311 against Australia and bundled out the five times champions for only 177 runs, the third match.
After the surprising result against Netherlands, South Africa bounced back strongly against England in the next match with scoring 399 runs and bowling out the champions for 170 runs. So, it would be a tough challenge for the Tigers when they will face off South Africa in their fifth match tomorrow (Tuesday).
But the Tigers have some happy memories of defeating South Africa for twice in their four encounters in the previous editions of the World Cup, even in the last edition in England Bangladesh had a tremendous victory over the Proteas.
