Tigers brighten chance to reach qtrs
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
CHITTAGONG, Mar 14 (UNB): A brilliant half century by Imrul Kayes guided Bangladesh to brighten their chance to reach the quarter-finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, beating the Netherlands by six wickets in their make or break 5th Group B match here today.
With the day's victory, Bangladesh strongly came back to the quarterfinal race securing six points from five matches after winning both of their outings at their lucky hunting ground - Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium - in the port city.
To make it straight to a quarterfinal berth, Bangladesh now have to beat South Africa on March 19 in Dhaka in their remaining Group B match. Otherwise, they have to pray for England's defeat against West Indies on March 17 in Chennai.
Earlier, Bangladesh made the grounds for a quarterfinal berth beating Ireland by 27 runs in Dhaka and consolidated their claim upsetting England by two wickets, also in Chittagong, both nerve shattering hard-fought matches.
Netherlands captain Peter
Borren, in a post-match press briefing, blamed run outs of their four batsmen for their poor total and also appreciated the bowling of local pacer Shafiul Islam.
Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan said they would prefer to reach quarterfinals with a defeat for England against West Indies, rather than require a win against South Africa.
He further said, "A win can change the total scenario, we are on the right track now, improving day by day."
Chasing an easy target of 161 runs, Bangladesh lost four wickets to score 166 runs in 41.2 overs amid huge cheers from the almost full-house crowd in the stadium and millions of TV viewers.
After the soft dismissal of reliable opening batsman-cum-vice-captain Tamim Iqbal for a duck, his opening partner Imrul Kayes pairing with Junaid Siddique, repaired the early damage to contribute 92 runs in the 2nd wicket stand.
After the departure of Junaid Siddique scoring 35 runs off 53 deliveries featuring four fours, Imrul Kayes built up another 59-run partnership with fresh inclusion Shahriar Nafees, who displayed patience making a 60-ball 37 runs, also with four fours.