{"id":147102,"date":"2025-09-16T09:42:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147102\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T09:42:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:42:18","slug":"bangladesh-in-battle-for-survival-against-rampaging-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147102\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh in battle for survival against rampaging Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those words may well come back to haunt him, for after two matches, Bangladesh are sitting in third, behind Sri Lanka and Afghanistan and nothing less than a win \u2011 preferably a resounding one \u2011 in Abu Dhabi against the Rashid Khan-led side is going to help their cause.<\/p>\n

But then, beating Afghanistan is easier said than done. With a world-class spin attack and some explosive batters in the side, the Afghans have shown they are ready to go the distance, despite having \u2018choked\u2019 before the finishing line a couple of times before.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to expect in this crucial clash for both these sides \u2026<\/p>\n

How the odds are stacked against Bangladesh<\/p>\n

For all of Litton Das\u2019 brave words, Bangladesh find themselves in a precarious position after two matches. They must beat Afghanistan by a big margin, but in case the margin is small, hope that the Afghans lose to Sri Lanka in their last match. In case Sri Lanka lose to Afghanistan, then all three teams will be on 4 points each and the net run rate will come into the equation.<\/p>\n

All these permutations and combinations will, however, only play out if they beat Afghanistan first and that in itself is a big if. As of today, Sri Lanka, by virtue of their win against Hong Kong yesterday, have 4 points from their 2 matches with a net run rate of +1.546; Afghanistan\u2019s net run rate is +4.700 after one match; and Bangladesh are languishing in third with 2 points from 2 matches and a net run rate of -0.650.<\/p>\n

Why Afghanistan only need a win<\/p>\n

The demolition job against Hong Kong has put Afghanistan in the driver\u2019s seat for a place in the Super Fours. Yes, they could still lose to Bangladesh and then to Sri Lanka and be out of the reckoning, but recent form suggests they have enough in their arsenal to oust Bangladesh. The two sides haven\u2019t met for over a year in the shorter white-ball format, but Afghanistan hold a 7-5 edge in the head-to-heads, winning their previous encounter in the T20 World Cup last year.<\/p>\n

All in all, the \u2018Group of Death\u2019 truly seems to be living up to its billing.<\/p>\n

\"Jaydip<\/a><\/p>\n

Jaydip is a Pages Editor at Gulf News and has sports running in his veins. While specializing in Tennis and Formula 1, he also makes sure to stay on top of cricket, football, golf, athletics and anything related to sports in general.<\/p>\n

Known for his ability to dig out exclusive stories and land interviews with the biggest names in sports, Jaydip has built up a remarkable portfolio in almost 25 years of journalism, with one-on-one interviews of Michael Schumacher, Roger Federer, Usain Bolt and Tiger Woods, just to name a few.<\/p>\n

Besides sports, Jaydip also has a keen interest in films and geopolitics. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those words may well come back to haunt him, for after two matches, Bangladesh are sitting in third,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-147102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}