The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is on the horizon and ten top cricketing nations are all set to give their best to achieve cricket’s ultimate prize. Cricket experts, analyst and in general enthusiasts are saying that host nation England are hot favourites to lift the cup along with India and Australia. Apart from them there is another team that can win the World Cup. They never won the World Cup, their best achievement in the World Cup was to qualify for the quarter finals. Everyone can now guess which team we are talking about here. Yes, it is team Bangladesh.
All in sundry might be shocked to hear that Bangladesh can clinch the World Cup. But why not? Before the 1996 World Cup, if anyone said Sri Lanka will win the cup, then no one would have believed that. But Sri Lanka won it in the end. Bangladesh have the resemblance of that Sri Lankan team. Look at the Bangladesh team’s progress graph over the past several years. Then put the faces of Mashrafe bin Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim in the face of Arjuna Ranatunga, Arvind De Silva, Sanath Jayasuriya, Roshan Mahanama and Asanka Gurusinha, you’ll find resemblance.
Tigers skipper Mashrafe has been spreading a belief in the dressing room for a long time. Which is Bangladesh can win the World Cup in England.Although none of team memberssaid it officially.But their body language suggests that. A few days before the Bangladesh team went to Ireland, in the dressing room of Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla Stadium, a senior cricketer of the team was suggesting the possibility of playing in the final. Even the prospect of being champions was not ruled out by him.
If that is the case, then we should find the possible‘X Factor’of this team. Experience is one of Tigers’ X-factor in this tourney. Four of the current team players have the experience of playing three World Cups, all other teams combined have only two such players. Then comes the power of youth. Soumya Sarkar was suffering from run scarcity. Liton Das was not doing justice to his ability. Dismal Musta¬fizur’s form was raising anxiety, the lack of consistency in the opening partner of Ta¬mim Iqbal was also ano¬ther reason of Bangladesh’s headache before World Cup.
However, Mustafizur finally made amends and Soumya Sarkar’s return to form came as a relief for Tigers. Mohammad Saifuddin’s consistent fiery death over bowling is keeping experience campaigner like Rubel Hossain out of the squad. Mehidy Hassan Miraj also added a lot of depth in spin with Shakib Al Hasan. That’s why not only winning form in the tri-nation series in Ireland is a reason of hope, but rectifying the weaknesses also brought a relief of fresh air in the Tigers camp.
There are several reasons for Bangladesh to lift the cup. This will be last World Cup of Bangladesh’s ‘Big Five’ together. This is Mashrafe’s last World Cup for sure. But will Shakib, Tamim, Mushfiq and Mahmudullah remain in the team for the next World Cup? They gave a lot to Bangladesh cricket. So, they would be desperate to do something big together this time around.
Inspirational skipper Mashrafe is another reason why Tigers should be judged as one of the favourites. Tigers’ success stories since 2015 World Cup, came under the leadership of Mashrafe. Therefore, in the upcoming World Cup, Mashrafe and Co. have no boundaries to their success.
After reading this article, readers might think, Bangladesh will certainly win the cup or the writer of this article is insane. What can the writer do tell me! He genuinely thinks Bangladesh have the chance to do something big this time. However, to win the cup you also need luck apart from X-factors and performances. If not the cup, Tigers certainly can seal a top 4 spot, if they play as a unit.
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