Bangladesh prepare to take on ‘favourites’ England in Champions Trophy opener

Champions: England. Statistically the most destructive unit around since the 2015 World Cup and they are playing on home soil.

Officially known as Wills International Cup, the 1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy was a One Day International cricket tournament held in Bangladesh and the first tournament apart from the World Cups to involve all the test playing nations. But for Australia’s players? He continued with 66 off 63 balls in the practice match against India. On hard, spinning wickets, England impressively won a low-scoring series 2-1 under the leadership of Jos Buttler. But everybody knew that without global colours the country’s cricket would not move forward and as we were then not in a position to showcase our talent, it was up to the organisers to showcase our potential as a future cricketing nation.

Bowled out for 153 midway through their allotted overs after falling to 20-6, England will take hope from a similar occurrence for Bangladesh on Tuesday. England, the host, is expected to go all the way. It will be the same for both teams.

Hosts England, who have shown fantastic transformation as a potent limited-overs side, will be the “Dark Horse” in the eight-team tournament where the once formidable West Indies are a notable absentee. That tactic becomes an option because of the faith placed in Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor as safety nets at Nos 3 and 4.

In its wisdom, the the ICC is making that tournament smaller the next time it is played by reducing it to just 10 teams, as opposed to the 14 that played in 2015. Returning from an injury, he might not have had the best IPL but in the warm-up match against New Zealand on Sunday, he showed why it is a different game altogether in the blue jersey.

Defeat by 240 runs was certainly not what they wanted. Both Australia and England are favourites for this edition of Champions Trophy. The opening match of the Champions Trophy against the same opponents at The Oval on Thursday (June 1), their first meeting in the competition since 2000, is likely to herald the start of an altogether better effort. The winners from each Group progressed to the Semi-Finals.

The ICC Champions Trophy – the blue riband event of the 50-over season this year is set to begin on Thursday with hosts England kicking things off against Bangladesh at the Edgbaston. England now play without fear. The good news for Bangladesh fans is the wind of change that has hit the Tigers’ camp, leading them to an inspirational journey.

Just over two years ago England suffered the embarrassment of crashing out of the World Cup without getting out of their group after losing to Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval. His performance would be instrumental in case Pakistan wants to win the game.

Pakistan have had a knack of throwing up new talent.

Classy Test captain Joe Root has the skill to adapt his game to all formats, while Stokes and Jos Buttler are two of the most exciting players to watch in full flow. A competitive five-match series against South Africa at home followed, but it lost the decider to go down 2-3. Yet to face Australia or England.

Bangladesh has improved by leaps and bounds in One Day Cricket.

“The bowlers were outstanding in the two games”. India definitely has a chance to win the title. His strike rates reads 81.6 against Australia, 90.2 against England, and 68.7 against New Zealand.

Several times, the idea of doing away with the Champions Trophy completely was mooted but somehow, the struggling tournament has managed to cling on.

Bangladesh’s biggest threat is facing England and Australia in the group stage itself. Of the 132 ODIs that India and Pakistan have played, India has only won 51 of them, pegging the ratio of victory at 41.7%. Kallis took 5/30 in the final against the West Indies in Dhaka and Cronje kept his cool with an unbeaten 61 to get South Africa safely over the line. India faced Sri Lanka and beat Sri Lanka by 8 wickets with a score of 182/2 as opposed to their score of 181/8. This is something Bangladesh will have to change if they want to be world beaters.