Playing all their matches at home has not quite turned out to be a major advantage for Bangladesh. Winning four out of two of them finds their net run rate in the negative.
Bangladesh might just have to win more matches than other teams in their group to get through to the quarter-finals. Winning matches by huge margins, which would actually affect the run rate, is not going to happen here, unless there is a complete collapse like the one against the West Indies in Mirpur.
Coach Jamie Siddons believes this is because the wickets Bangladesh have played their matches on, except for the one against India, have all been very slow and low and scores of above 300 have not been a trend. "Getting the run rate up is really difficult here, because our wickets aren't really 300-run wickets. Whereas in India it seems everybody is making 300 easily. Our wickets and our grounds are very different to those in India and Sri Lanka. It is very difficult chasing 300 on our wickets," Siddons said. Bangladesh's quarter-final hopes are dependent on them beating the Netherlands, England losing to the West Indies and of course Ireland not winning their remaining two matches against the Dutch and the South Africans. If this scenario does not play out, Bangladesh would have to beat South Africa.
"I always knew that the run rate is going to be a factor with us. In India the outfields are faster, the wickets are flatter the grounds are smaller. Some of them might be tough to bat on, but a lot of them are quite easy to score on and hit through the line. Scores like 330 have not been winning matches over there. Here only one game has had a big score - 225 and 205 have won us matches here. So we have to win more matches than other teams to get through," Siddons said.
{{/usCountry}}"I always knew that the run rate is going to be a factor with us. In India the outfields are faster, the wickets are flatter the grounds are smaller. Some of them might be tough to bat on, but a lot of them are quite easy to score on and hit through the line. Scores like 330 have not been winning matches over there. Here only one game has had a big score - 225 and 205 have won us matches here. So we have to win more matches than other teams to get through," Siddons said.
{{/usCountry}}The Australian felt scores like the one against the West Indies are an exception.