Dubai: Australia again showed their might with a big win over Bangladesh, but not before the Tigers chased the Kangaroos almost till the end, but giving up at the home stretch.
Australian opener David Warner was dropped early in the innings and went on to score, almost half of the world champions’ score. We can easily consider this as the turning point of the day. Was it actually the turning point? No, it is not.
In the larger scheme of things, it can at best called a bend in the long journey as dropping a catch is part and parcel of the game. Australia’s batting is very strong and they bat deep, so someone else would have stood up to lead them to a score of around 350 on a small ground and a pitch that did not help the bowlers, excepting the early part of the game. The actual turning point, rather the cause of Bangladesh downfall, is the lack of discipline in bowling.
They were wayward and not sticking to the basics of the game and fed the Aussies with full toss and short balls, which they feasted on happily.
A small stat will tell the whole story. Bangladesh bowled 111 dot balls out of the allotted 300 deliveries. In the rest of the 189 deliveries, they have conceded 381 runs, which is almost two runs a ball. The Australians were dealing in boundaries as 34 fours and 10 six in Australia innings alone account for 196 runs in 44 balls.
Another interesting fact is that the number of dot balls reveal that the world champions were cautious in their approach and punished only the loose deliveries. In that scenario a sustained bowling effort could have restricted Australia to a lower score, which could have given Bangladesh the chance to alter the result of the contest.
Bangladesh are known to contain their opponents in the middle overs, but they failed miserably against Australia, where they conceded 109 runs in an eight-over period between 39th and 46th overs and lost the grip on the contest.
Another interesting fact that Bangladesh exposed is that the Australian bowling is vulnerable. Mitchell Starc once again proved to be the most economical among the bowlers from both teams. Australia’s bowling options are very limited and it’s time to bring on Nathan Lyon to plug the holes as the world champions have ticked most of the other boxes, especially their top order batting, where skipper Aaron Finch, Warner, Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith in good nick with Glenn Maxwell and the rest to boost the run-rate.
Bangladesh again scored in excess of 300, despite Shakib Al Hassan suffering a rare failure, considering his form and successive centuries, 41 is considered a failure!
While it was a forgottable outing for Shabbir Rahman, in his first game in this World Cup, as he dropped Warner when the Australian opener was on 10 off the bowling of skipper Mashrafe Murtaza and was dismissed for zero off the first ball he faced, Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah regained their sublime touch. Bangladesh slowly but surely are cementing their position among the World Cup elite for the last four spot.
