Great hosts-Bangladesh!

Well I wish like Pakistan, had even Bangladesh been stripped off its hosts' status, that would not have been a bad decision at all by any means. By no means are Bangladesh justifying their being the co-hosts along with India and Sri Lanka. For the second time in the tournament, Bangladesh were bowled out for a score less than 100. The first one was against West Indies when they were bowled out for 58 runs at their home ground. This time, Bangladesh did slightly better to see them end their score by another 20 runs on the board. The only reason for critics to go silent.

Even in that match against the West Indies, Bangladesh had absolutely no reasons to fare so badly taking into account the caliber of the West Indies team who are yet to win against a decent opposition till date with a match against due. On the other hand, Bangladesh did well in the match against England where they beat them by 2 wickets and then in the first encounter against India where though Bangladesh lost, they gave in a tough fight to the co-hosts India where they didn't lose all ten wickets and scored 283 runs on the board losing by 87 runs.

In yesterday's game against South Africa, though hardly anybody would have expected them to win, at least a few of them would have expected Bangladesh to put up a tough fight. Another match that would be worth citing here would be the one against Ireland where both the contestants were equally competitive, with wins against England and Holland. With this loss, Bangladesh end their campaign with three wins, equal to West Indies who have wins against Holland, Ireland and Bangladesh. These were obvious wins for a test playing nation like the West Indies. However, their big game is due against India later this week.

Similarly, India has had wins against Ireland, Bangladesh and Netherlands which is also quite obvious. Both of them have their big game to come. But, the scorecard of yesterday's game might make someone laugh when only one batsman from Bangladesh happened to score more then 10 runs and making it more worse was that even the number of extra deliveries bowled by the South African bowlers ended at 8 which was 2 less than the speculated figure. This was South Africa's second 200+ margin victory after their thrashing of Holland at Mohali. Concluding the post, Bangladesh should be glad that the Proteas didn't cross the 300 run mark like India.