KXIP dumped Royals to register 3rd straight win.

 

Unlucky day for Rajasthan Royals as nothing gone their way and lucky day for KXIP as everything fell in place. KXIP now registered 3rd straight win in the tournament and climbed to the 3rd spot and joined Kolkata, Kochi and Mumbai on points table. Rajasthan slipped one place and now on No.5 on points table.

Royals won the toss and elected to field first. Soon they got the breakthrough when Trivedi bowled Gilchrist but there was twist in tale as it was declared no-ball and Gilchrist was lucky enough to survive. Soon Shaun Tait got the wicket of Valthaty but Royals bad-luck continued as this ball was also declared no-ball. After getting reprieve Valthaty and Gilchrist  just   counter-attacked Royals bowling mercilessly as duo put on 67 runs in just 5 overs.Valthaty once again showed his class and his consistent run with the bat continued which also earned him orange cap as he got past Sachin Tendulkar and became highest run-getter in IPL 4. Finally partnership was broken as Watson picked up Gilchrist. But Royals woes continued as Shaun Marsh straight away attacked the Rajasthan bowlers and played shots all over the park.

In the meantime Valthaty continued his heroics and finally fell to Shane Warne who gave him few verbals as well. At 15th over KXIP reached the score of 169 and it looked ominous that KXIP,  easily get past the 200 mark but Royals came back strongly and reduced KXIP to 195. Siddharth Trivedi and Shane Warne were the costliest bowler for Rajasthan Royals as both of them given more than 50 runs of their bowling. Tait and Watson were the most economical bowlers. Shane Warne also picked up his 50th IPL wicket and became 2nd bowler to do so after R.P Singh.

Chasing score of 195 on a flat deck looked easy but Royals batsmen made the mess of the target as they kept losing wickets at regular interval. Once again  Shane Watson was barred from opening the innings as Swapnil Asnodkar who replaced Paunikar opened the batting with Rahul Dravid. But  Dravid, Asnodkar, Watson and Taylor fell in succession and put the Royals in losing situation but young Ashok Menaria and Stuart Binny did the 50 runs partnership which kept some hopes alive for Rajasthan but increasing run-rate pressure forced Menaria and Binny to play the false strokes and after the departure of Menaria and Binny writing was on wall for Rajasthan and finally Rajasthan faced their third loss in six matches and KXIP registered 3rd consecutive victory.

It was unlucky day for Rajasthan Royals where they got the wickets off no-balls, they fielded poorly, batting did not clicked and they dropped too many catches.

Man of the Match

Shaun Marsh

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Top of the table  KKR will take on bottom of the table RCB.

Another exciting battle on the cards at Edens today as depleted RCB will take on jubilant KKR. At the moment KKR is on top of the table with 6 points and RCB is lying on bottom of the table with 2 points. As far as RCB is concerned it is unfortunate that they are at bottom, looking at their team composition they are the most formidable team in this tournament, so it is surprising that RCB has registered just 1 win from their 4 matches.

After loss against Kochi Tuskers, KKR will go into this match with little caution as no one expected them to get the defeat at the hands of Kochi but that happened. It was poor batting which forced their downfall against Kochi. KKR is one team which looks quite formidable this year. They have great team composition which has mixed blend of youth and experienced players. KKR has won 3 matches out of 5 so far in this edition of IPL. KKRs main reason for loss in last match was the early wickets of Kallis and Gambhir who have given them great starts so far in the tournament. Form of Kallis is little concern now as he failed to score in last 2 matches and he is one player who is capable of holding the innings. But Kallis is class act and he will certainly get among the runs today against his ex-team. Manoj Tiwary’s form is excellent and he is improving with every game. KKR bowling is also quite formidable as they have Brett Lee and Balalji who are bowling well at the moment and backed up well by their spinners, Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan and Iqbal Abdulla. KKR batting is strong and very deep and that is big advantage to them. Only thing they require is good start from their openers.They have to replace Bisla with young Shreevats Goswami as Bisla failed to improve his batting and Goswami is far better batsmen than Bisla. Also it will give advantage of left-right combination because Goswami is left-hander and he is very good wicket-keeper as well.

Well what to say about RCB. It’s a dream team for any owner certainly. It has likes of Virat Kohli, AB DeVilliers, Tillkaratane Dilshan, Saurabh Tiwary, Cheteshwar Pujara in their ranks. While bowling consists of Zaheer Khan, Daniel Vettori, Charl Langeveldt. Its great team but not clicking as a unit. Inclusion of Gayle will further bolster their batting line-up; It is one team  which was expected to win consistently but to everybody’s surprise they failed to make any kind of impact in the tournament. Vijay Mallaya reformed this team completely but yet failed to get the desired results, now whom he will sack. RCB is in pathetic situation and they have to start winning games. One more loss and path towards semis  will become more difficult. They have to win against KKR today at any cost as they can’t afford to lose any more matches. They have to gain the momentum and that will happen only by winning the games. So far they relying on two bowlers heavily and only 2 bowlers can’t win match for any team. Team needs efforts from all the members in order to win, so their other bowlers have to perform and  provide support to Zaheer Khan and Daniel Vettori.

KKR will certainly have little advantage today and they will be keen to rub the memories of last game while RCB will try to win at any cost today.

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Team Info:

Kolkata Knightriders

Gautam Gambhir(Captain), Yusuf Pathan, Manoj Tiwary, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Jaidev Unadkat, Iqbal Abdulla, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Manvinder Singh Bisla(Wicket-Keeper), Pradeep Sangwan, Rajat Bhatia, Sarabjit Ladda, Shami Ahmed, Shreevats Goswami (Foreign) Jacques Kallis, Brad Haddin(Wicket-Keeper), Shakib Al Hassan, Brett Lee, Eoin Morgan, Ryan ten Doeschate, James Pattinson.Dave Whatmore(Coach)

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Team Info:

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Daniel Vettori (Captain), Virat Kohli, Tillakaratne Dilshan, AB De Villiers (wicket-keeper), Zaheer Khan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Dirk Nannes, Saurabh Tiwary, Mohammad Kaif, Abhimanyu Mithun, Charl Langeveldt, Luke Pomersbach, Rilee Rossouw, Johan van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar, CM Gautam (Wicket-Keeper), S Arvind, Mayank Agarwal, Arun Karthick, Asad Khan Pathan, Abrar Kazi, Ryan Ninan, Bhareth Narayanan, Nuwan Pradeep.Ray Jennings(Coach)

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Chennai Super Kings to play buoyant Mumbai Indians

It is going to be a sequel of last year’s IPL final. Dhoni’s Kings will take on Sachin’s Indians today at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Right now Mumbai Indians are on No.2 on the points table with 3 wins under belt from four matches. While CSK is on No.8 after 2 wins and 2 losses from 4 matches they played so far. Its also revenge time as Mumbai Indians will certainly look to take revenge of last year’s final.

Looking at Mumbai Indians, it is fantastic team and doing very well in the tournament so far. Mumbai Indians are coming into this match with win under their belt over Pune Warriors India. Captain Sachin Tendulkar is in sub-lime form and  Ambati Rayadu is also playing well. Mumbai Indians have class players in their ranks and their batting is far better than some of the other teams in the tournament with Sachin firing from the top. They have hitters like James Franklin, Pollard and Symonds. Youngsters like Jacobs, Rohit Sharma and Ambati Rayadu. They have fantastic bowling line-up which boasts of slinga Malinga, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, Abu Nechim and Ali Murtaza. Mumbai Indians is the most balanced side in the tournament and their performance in the tournament is evidence of that. Icing on the cake is batting of Sachin Tendulkar whose sheer presence on the crease certainly demoralise the opposition team.

Defending champions CSK did not live upto their reputation of Champions so far as they lost 2 matches out of 4. After making great start in the tournament they lost their way somewhat. This match is very crucial for them to regain that lost momentum. They have great batting line-up and also have very good bowling attack. They have magical captain in Dhoni who lead them to the title win  in last edition. Today they will be playing against the team whom they beat in last edition’s final. CSK possess the likes of Mike Hussey, Raina and Dhoni who are great batsmen in shorter version of the game and they have crisis manager in Badrinath who often bail them out of the trouble. They have good bowlers in their ranks as well. Morkel, Bollinger, Jakati, Suraj Randiv, R.Ashwin are capable enough to get wickets anywhere. Fielding is one of the strong aspect of CSK compared to o0ther teams. Today’s game against Mumbai is very crucial for CSK and they have to win to regain that lost momentum.

Mumbai Indians will certainly have little edge in this game and CSK have to play hard to win this game.

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Team Info:

Mumbai Indians

Sachin Tendulkar (c), Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Aditya Tare, Ali Murtuza, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni, Pawan Suyal, Rajagopal Sathish, Surul Kanwar, Surya Kumar Yadav, T Suman, Yazvendra Singh Chahal, (Foreign) Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Andrew Symonds, Davy Jacobs, James Franklin, Moises Henriques, Alden Blizzard, Dilhara Fernando

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Team Info:

Chennai Super Kings

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Captain/Wicket-Keeper), Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Wriddhiman Saha(Wicket-Keeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Subramanium Badrinath, Joginder Sharma, Sudeep Tyagi, Abhinav Mukund, Aniruddha Shrikant, Ganapathi Vignesh, K Vasudevdas, Shadb Jakati, Vijaykumar Yomahesh, (Foreign) Albie Morkel, Michael Hussey, Dwayne Bravo, Doug Bollinger, Scott Styris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Nuwan Kulasekera, Suraj Randiv, George Bailey, Faf du Plessis. Stephen Fleming(Coach)

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Prevew: QF-2 Litmus test ahead for the Aussies against Indians at Motera.

Thursday is going to be a D-Day for India as well as Australia. One will succeed in achieving their goals another one will go home . 4 time champions and 3 consecutive time winners of the World Cup trophy, can Aussies pass the litmus test? According to law of averages they will fail but you never count them out because they are virtually invincibles. For India, Champion of 1983 edition, this is the biggest occasion to show the world that they are the top side in the World and they are still favourites to win the trophy. Its a final before the final. Its revenge time for India. Its time to settle few old scores which is haunting Indian team and Indian cricket for very long. Its time to break the arrogance of the most arrogant team in the world. Will Dhoni and his men do it?

It is the ground where history created many times. Legendary Sunil Gavaskar reached his  landmark of 10000 runs and became first cricketer to achieve that feat. Kapil Dev broke the record of highest wickets of Sir Richard Hadlee on this very ground when he claimed 432nd wicket. This ground also witnessed first double century of Sachin Tendulkar in test cricket. So as far as records are concern Motera ground is happy hunting ground for the Indians but their ODI record is poor on this ground as they lost 7 matches out of 13. So this record is speaking against Indians.

India possess best batting line-up in the World  at the moment but that batting failed to an extent in the tournament so far. Tendulkar and Sehwag are among the highest run-getters but middle-order failed to impress so far and often Indian batting collapsed in the tournament after getting into good positions. I think India have to rectify that and they have to sort out the 'Powerplay Ghost' immediately because thats where Team India is losing the plot. But there is good thing that Team India is collapsing after reaching good scores and that will give them some solace when they take on mighty Aussies at Motera in Ahmedabad. So far India played on the venues where they got flat pitches and Motera will  not going to be different one. 

Indian batting will get some more strength with the return of its swashbuckling opener Virender Sehwag who missed the last group stage game against West Indies due to allergic reaction in the knee. Sehwag's sheer presence on the crease is enough to demoralise the opposition. Who can forget his 83 run innings against Australia in 2003 World Cup finals at Johannesburg. He was the only batsmen who took on mighty Aussies in that game. So top-order batting is not that bigger concern for India it is middle-order and lower-order which has failed to score runs when required. 

India's bowling was considered its weakest link and it was matter of concern till the match against West Indies  but with the inclusion of R. Ashwin it has certainly got teeth to its attack. So far Zaheer Khan was the lone warrior but now he will get good enough support from Ashwin and Harbhajan has also showed the signs of improvement since last few matches, so bowling is no more weak link. One can also keep in mind that so far Indian bowlers bowled on the flat tracks where opposition bowlers were also gone for plenty so I think in Ahmedabad if Indian bowlers will go for runs then Aussie bowlers will also leak plenty of runs. I think more than bowling Dhoni have to work on the field placings because field placings often affect the bowler's performance. So far Dhoni set defensive fields and never tried to attack the  opposition batsmen and thats where India faltered. I think Dhoni have to be offensive in the field placings. I think Harbhajan and Ashwin must have silly point, slip and a short leg when they are bowling. Dhoni have to keep atleast 5 fielders in the ring  in order to stop the quick singles so that will create pressure on opposition batsmen to go for big shots and that    will give chance to the bowlers to pick up wickets. So field placings have to be spot-on and no easy singles for the opposition batsmen if India wants to stop its opposition from getting big score.

Aussies are coming into match with a defeat under their belt at the hands of Pakistan. Pakistan broke their consecutive 34 matches winning streak in the World Cup and Australians will be over-cautious in the match against India. Form of captain Ricky Ponting is big concern for Australia but he is a big match player and he is one innings away from hitting the form and its possible that he hits the form against India because he was the one who scored 140 runs of 121 balls against India in 2003 World Cup finals which eventually Australia won. So Aussies must be expecting similar kind of innings from Ponting at Motera if they want to go into semis. Motera wicket will be a belter and it will give good opportunity to Ricky Ponting to score half-century or century. So India have to be cautious of that and try to pick Ricky as early as possible. Brett Lee and Shane Watson are the back-bone of Australian team. If these two will perform to their potential in this crucial game then Australia will certainly win this game. Brett Lee is the only bowler who got Sachin Tendulkar out 14 times in 39 games most by any bowler in the world. So Sachin v/s Lee will going to be mouth-watering contest.

Australia have few middle-order batting issues like India and their middle-order have to click at any cost at Motera. If their midlle-order fails which often happened in the tournament so far then this will going to be their last match in this World Cup. Another problem is their spin department. They don't have quality spinner in their ranks who can run through the side which is required badly in the sub-continental conditions. They must be missing Shane Warne badly as Jason Krezja failed to impress so far and Steve Smith, the leg-spinner has been not utilized much by Ponting. So big headache  for Ponting as far as spin bowling is concern and Aussies batsmen themselves are vulnerable against spinners. If we talk about Shaun Tait and Mitchel Johnson then Tait looked liability so far  and Johnson has picked up wickets but in patches as there is no consistency seen in Johnson's bowling and flat wicket of Motera will not serve very well to the Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson. Ponting have to come out with innovative plans to tackle strong Indian batting line-up other wise high scoring game is on cards at Motera.

This is the contest which cricket lovers waiting for a while and it will be interesting to see who will advance to the semis because it is evenly balanced contest.

Invincible Aussies take on jubilant Pakistan. India will fight to regain their favourites tag at Chepauk.

Its big battle ahead of the knockout stage in the tournament in which mighty Pakis will take on invincible Aussies. This battle will decide who will top the Group A. There is no suspense in Group A as all the top teams who were expected to go into quarter-finals has already made it. If Australia wins they will lead the Group A. If Pakistan win then they will lead the Group A. So it will be interesting to see who ends up on top from Group A.

Looking at the venue, Premdasa Stadium I think Pakistan is favourite to win the contest because they have the team which suits more to the conditions and pitch as compare to Australia. Shahid Afridi captain of Pakistan team is  the leading wicket-taker in the tournament so far and he holds the key to Pakistan bowling. Its interesting to see whom Pakistan play as second spinner. They have Ahmad, Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Razzak to choose from. So far Afridi bamboozled opposition batsmen with his leg-spin bowling and without much support from other spinners, so it becomes more interesting as Aussies are vulnerable to spin. They have good pace bowlers in Umar Gul, Shoaib Akhtar and Abdul Razzak but I think Shoaib Akhtar is doubtful for this match due to the little niggle which he is carrying from the beginning of the tournament. Although Shoaib Akhtar will definitely love to play this game as he has announced his retirement after this World Cup. So he will try to play as many matches as possible before the World Cup gets over.If Pakistan reach the finals then Akhtar will play big role in Pakistan's scheme of things.

As far as Pakistan batting is concerned, they have all kind of issues in the top-order and batting is the weakest link of Pakistan. Misbah and Younis fired in few matches but they are not consistent and Umar Akmal's injury don't help Pakistan either. So Pakistan have to settle few batting issues before the knockout stage and this is the match where they have the chance to do so. Ahmed Shehjad has given some hopes to Afridi at top of the order but it will be interesting to see how he handles the pace of Lee, Tait and Johnson. I believe Afridi have to shoulder more responsibility with bat as well if Pakistan wants to win this match and the World Cup.

Talking about Australia, well they are invincible in World Cup since 1999 World Cup finals but remember Pakistan is the team which defeated them last time in World Cup 1999. So they have to be careful against their unpredictable opposition. Form of Ponting is big concern for Aussies as Ponting failed miserably with the bat in last 4 months and captain's poor form definitely affects the team performance. Aussies will go into match with the intention of winning it and try to keep their unbeaten record intact with the win but things will not going to be that easy on the slow and turning pitch of Premdasa. Watson and Haddin have to provide them best of the starts, so that middle-order comes in and capitalise on the platform give by their openers. Form of Michael Clarke is heartening from the Aussie perspective. They have one of the best bowling line-up in the world as two of the fastest bowlers in the world cricket in Lee and Tait opens the bowling and they are backed with bowler like Mitchell Johnson. They have handy spinner in Jason Krezja who can do wonders on the turning pitch. 

So, exciting contest in the offering as both teams fight for the glory today and try to gain momentum ahead of knockout stage.

 India will fight to regain their favourites tag at Chepauk.

India will go into the match against West Indies with the intention to win it comprehensively after all the cricticism they faced in the past week after their loss to South Africa at Orange City which really hanged sword on their chances of qualifying for the quarter-finals. I also think this is last chance for Dr. Dhoni to experiment with the combination because after this match he will not get any chance of experiment and if he tries to experiment in kncokout stage and if that fails then his ass will going to be pissed off by the BCCI and public. That will also impact the viewership of IPL. I think this year's IPL viewership will also depends largely on India's World Cup performance because there is only 6 day gap between end of World Cup and commencement of IPL and BCCI don't want to fail in organising IPL especially after the termination of Mr. Lalit Modi.So Team  India's performance in the World Cup campaign will directly affect the IPL. So Dhoni have to be careful and have to win the trophy for the IPL and BCCI instead of public and Sachin Tendulkar.

As much as the wicket holds up, the constant getting more and more prominent is the advantage of winning the toss. Bar flies at the Madras Cricket Club have now calculated that winning the toss - and batting first - is like adding 75 to the total, even before a ball has been bowled. The problem may well be that ODIs haven't been played in Chennai during the month of March for the last 15 years. The last one was the 1996 World Cup quarter-final, between two teams who will be glued to Sunday's game, Australia and New Zealand.

On Sunday, for India to find their mojo and West Indies to give themselves a chance to hang on in the Cup, prayers around the toss must be abandoned. For all its trials, the Chepauk track must be made immaterial. Between the two teams, India have the best of all options, other than fielding of course. The team turned up at Chepauk on Friday for the first time in the lead-up to the match. There was an energetic game of football and the first two batsmen in the nets were Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina, and the first bowler wheeling his arm over was local offspinner R Ashwin.

While Ashwin's inclusion in the XI is as good as a foregone conclusion and far removed from Piyush Chawla's absence from the nets on Friday, there is every chance that Suresh Raina may make his way into the squad as well. The reasons are several: the confidence of his batting in Indian conditions, his ability to quickly churn out a few part-time overs and the speed and energy of his legs. Yusuf Pathan may well look like the easiest candidate to be replaced, but Raina's inclusion in place of Pathan will not be a case of like replacing like. The left-hander may be a purely attacking middle-order batsman, but a power hitter he is not. The choice of India 11 will be a dilemma because, on Sunday, they would like to field the squad that can move ahead in the tournament. Any switches, other than due to injury, between their last group game and their first quarter-final is flirting with hazard. The Indians may live in a silent bubble, but the rumblings about their Nagpur performance are being felt. Bowlers, who always consider themselves the footsoldiers, grumble that once again they are copping the flak for India's flashy cavalry of batsmen. It may not make sense for Pathan and Ashish Nehra to be made the easy scapegoats for the middle-order batting failure in Nagpur, but the maths of Indian cricket sometimes works in mysterious ways.

A media storm rose on Thursday evening about a meeting between captain MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, chairman of selectors Krish Srikkanth, coach Gary Kirsten and bowling coach Eric Simons. It was a pre-planned meeting centred around giving Simons at the very least an interim role as India coach, following Kirsten's departure after the Cup, until a permanent solution to the vacancy is found. 

As far as West Indies is concerned they have only defeated minnows so far in the World Cup and lost to South Africa and England, so it will be interesting to see how they play against India. Toss will also play crucial role for them and they would love to win the toss and bat first. I think they must promote Keiron Pollard to No.4 because he is impact player and have to be utilised in a best possible manner. Russell, Sammy, Roach, Benn and Bishoo the debutant of last game forms very good bowling combination and i think West Indies keep their head balanced on their shoulder they beat any team but till now they did not play like a unit and they will certainly work out on this.

West have very good batsmen in Gayle, Drren Bravo, Sarwan and Chanderpaul but all these guys have to play to their potential if they wants to win against India. Gayle provided them very good starts so far in the tournament but couldn't capitalise on those starts. So one or two batsmen who gets the starts must convert those starts into big scores so that West Indies bowlers get something to defend. 

India and West Indies will lock horn tomorrow to establish supremacy and contest will going to offer lot of thrill, drama and suspense to the spectators.

Kangaroos take on KIwis and Bangla Tigers face Ireland

2 matches will be played tomorrow. First encounter will between  old neighbours Australia and New Zealand. If we talk about these two countries on the basis of form then I believe Australia will have upper-hand in this encounter and looks good to register easy win over New Zealand. In ICC ODI  Rankings, Australia is currently No.1 team and New Zealand is sitting at No.7 spot. So difference between the two teams is huge. In fact recent performances of both the teams also justify their positions as Australia coming to this tournament with comprehensive ODI series win over England at home while New Zealand lost their home-series against Pakistan. But one thing is common between both the teams, both teams have defeated their opponents in their respective opening matches. Australia defeated Zimbabwe and New Zealand defeated Kenya.

Australia looks far more dangerous than New Zealand at the moment and favourites to win the contest as they possess two deadly fast bowlers in Lee and Tait while their other bowlers in Johnson and Bollinger also bowling well and bowling with reasonable pace and accuracy. Australia is lacking in spin department as they have only Jason Krejza to survive with. If talking about Australian batting then I must say except Shane Watson none of their top batsmen are in good form. Haddin, Ponting, Clarke, Fergusson, White, David Hussey,  all struggling for runs and they are badly missing services of Mike Hussey who was their mainstay in middle-order but unfortunately out of the World Cup because of injury. But make no mistake Australia can beat any team in the world even with the half team.

Squad:

Ricky Ponting(Captain), Michael Clarke(Vice-Captain), Shane Watson, Steve Smith, David Hussey, Michael Hussey, Cameroon White, Brad Haddin(WK), Tim Paine(WK), Nathan Hauritz, Mitchell Johnson, Doug Bollinger, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait, John Hastings. Tim Nielsen(Coach)

New Zealand's situation is very bad at the moment. They lost last 3 ODI series in a row and looks completely out of sorts. Although they won their opening match against Kenya convincingly but that cannot hide their weak links. They are clearly struggling but good thing for them is their bowling. Southee, Bennett and Vettori makes formidable bowling attack and if their batsmen score few runs then I feel they can win any game and can advance to semis as well. Form of Ross Taylor is big worry for New Zealand. He is their star batsmen and its important that he hits the form if New Zealand have to make some impact in the tournament. At the moment Taylor is having few technical flaws against spin which he needs to rectify immediately if he wants to do well on sub-continent pitches. He has to play on front -foot and have to use his feet if he wants to hit the sub-lime form.  Overall Kiwi batting is bit dodgy and they rely heavily on Guptill and McCullum to give them good start, if both openers will give them good start then I feel Kiwis can post or chase any total.

Squad:

Daniel Vettori(Captain), Hamish Bennett, James Franklin, Martin Guptill, Jamie How, Brendon McCullum(WK), Nathan McCullum, Jacob Oram, Jesse Ryder, Tim Southee, Scott Styris, Ross Taylor, Kane Williamson, Luke Woodcock, Kyle Mills. John Wright(Coach)

Another encounter will be between Bangla Tigers and minnows Ireland. Here I think Bangladesh will have upper hand because they are playing at home and nowadays they are very capable team atleast at home. They did very well in their opening match against India where they almost chased the huge Indian total. Situation will be different against Ireland and I believe Bangla spinners will not allow Ireland's batting to score too many runs. 

Bangla batting is in great form as Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes have become more than reliable openers for them in the shorter version of the format. As far as Ireland is concerned I must say they will gain good experience of playing in sub-continent but cannot win many matches but one cannot deny upsets. So important match for Bangladesh to stay in hunt for quarter-finals.

Squad:

Shakib Al Hasan(Captain), Tamim Iqbal(Vice-Captain), Mushfiqur Rahim(WK), Abdur Razzak, Naeem Islam, Nazmul Hossain, Imrul Kayes, Raqibul Hasan, Rubel Hossain, Junaid Siddique, Mahmuddulah, Mohammad Ashraful, Shafiul Islam, Shahriar Nafees, Suhrawadi Shuvo. Jamie Siddons(Coach)

Squad:

William Porterfield(Captain), Niall O'Brien(WK), Gary Wilson(WK), Kevin O'Brien John Mooney, Ed Joyce, Nigel Jones, Andrew White, Albert Van Der Merwe, TrentJohnston, George Dockrell, Paul Stirling, Alex Cusack, Boyd Rankin, Andre Botha. Phil Simmons(Coach)