It just doesn’t get better for South Africa. After their loss to Australia, they narrowly escaped losing to Sri Lanka but could not hold Bangladesh out on Saturday. How it affects their campaign remains to be seen, but it cannot be good! Their net run rate has already slipped into the red and they may well be threatened by England if the English can beat Australia and South Africa.
The road ahead is not easy for the Proteas and a loss to West Indies, New Zealand or England, their remaining three opponents could seriously undermine their chances of progressing. Just one upset has thrown the tournament wide open.
For Bangladesh, this is a big move up. Beating two major teams inside a month is not something they have often achieved. And in the process they have shown themselves the advantages of playing the basics right. On Saturday, they batted well around one big innings and bowled and fielded pretty much like Tigers.
Another potential upset could be when West Indies takes on South Africa on April 10. A loss here could be surely Cup-ending and revive painful memories of the last edition. Some of the more interesting matches that could lead to an upset are England v Bangladesh and Bangladesh may just upset the applecart with another upset. Unlikey, but a nice theory!
Meanwhile, there are some upsets in the Indian cricket world too. These, though, are mostly people!
The players are yet to react to the new rules and curbs by the BCCI that limits the number of endorsements the players can do at one time among other things. But it will be a strong reaction. Given that there is no one body to represent the players like in the West Indies and Australia, the individual reactions will cause only more anxiety.
The appointment of three coaches for the tour of Bangladesh will be an experiment worth watching. If one coach was hard to handle for the Indians, how they handle three will be really interesting!
Ravi Shastri as coach (manager) will be interesting as will Robin Singh (fielding coach) and Venkatesh Prasad (bowling coach). The fact is that most seniors have played with Prasad and Robin Singh while Tendulkar has even played with Shastri just 15 years ago! There may be easier communication between this group and the new coaches, but if the BCCI has its way with selection, seven seniors from the current squad will not go to Bangladesh. It will be tough to name these until the Bangladesh squad is announced, but one can’t help but feel that Sehwag, Agarkar and Harbhajan may be dropped.
The times sure are upsetting!