Co-hosts spar in curtain raiser

Match Facts
February 19, Mirpur
Start time 14:30 local time (08:30 GMT)

Big Picture
Events unfolding in Port of Spain four years ago culminated in euphoria on one side of the Bengal border, and gloom on the other. With every dance down the wicket from Tamim Iqbal, little-fancied Bangladesh landed another blow in a series of blows that would eventually eliminate India, wearied by the weight of expectation and a discordant dressing room, from the first round of the World Cup. Four years later the teams meet again, but in a tournament protected from the domino effect of a shock like the one in Trinidad. The stakes this time are different as well, for it is not just India, overwhelming favourites again, who carry a tremendous weight of expectation.

As Shakib Al Hasan entered the opening ceremony in a decorated cycle rickshaw, soaking in the goodwill from tens of thousands inside the Bangabandhu Stadium and the crowds surrounding it, his demeanour revealed pride and a sense of the grandeur of the occasion, and none of the reluctance he's had in captaining Bangladesh in series past. There would also have been a feeling of responsibility, of a magnitude no Bangladesh captain has ever faced before.

For the first time, Bangladesh are expected to go beyond the first round of a World Cup. For the first time, and largely because of a significant home advantage, their passage will not be considered an upset. For the first time, they are hosting a World Cup and can see all around them a stirring passion saturating the country. Bangladesh too will be relieved that the format allows a little room for error, while striving to avoid it against one of the tournament heavyweights.

Justifiably or not, India have begun several World Cups wearing the favourites tag, but never has that label been more authentic than now. Their bowling attack might blow hot and cold, but even on their most frigid days India possess a batting line-up capable of overhauling anything. And they play all their matches on the familiar pitches of home, apart from the opener against Bangladesh, which is at the Shere Bangla Stadium in Mirpur. The Indians won't say that revenge for 2007 is on their minds but there is no chance they will go into the contest with an iota of complacency.

Form guide
(Most recent first)
Bangladesh: WWWLW
India: LLWWL

Pitch and conditions
The pitch used for the practice game between Bangladesh and Pakistan in Mirpur had turn for the spinners. Not much is known about the surface for Saturday but it is expected to aid the slow bowlers. Dew has traditionally had an impact on day-night fixtures in Dhaka but it is supposedly not as big a concern in February. However, this is what Waqar Younis, Pakistan's coach, said after the warm-up game: "There was a little bit [of dew], maybe in the last 15 overs. It can be trouble later on in the tournament, so good luck to whoever is playing here."

Watch out for…
India's batsmen: Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Kohli, Yuvraj, Dhoni and Yusuf. The weakest link on paper in that line-up, Virat Kohli, is also India's most in-form batsman. And Suresh Raina, who was a rabbit in South Africa but is a force on the subcontinent, is an option too. Each one is capable of producing a match-winning innings. This Indian side is calibrated for scoring a 300-plus total, and chasing one down.

Spin, and dew: In their last ODI at home before the World Cup, against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh played four spinners: specialists Abdur Razzak and Suhrawadi Shuvo, allrounder Shakib, and part-time offspinner Naeem Islam. On slow tracks that turn, with batsmen needing to create the pace, they can control the pace of the game. India have played just one specialist, Harbhajan Singh, in recent games and relied on a phalanx of able part-timers - Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan and Suresh Raina. Given the prominent role of spin, the dew in Mirpur, if it is heavy, could have a considerable role in the day-night contest. A slippery ball and a slick outfield will be a disadvantage for the team defending a target under floodlights.

A fever-pitch atmosphere: The build-up to the World Cup has visibly been more intense in Bangladesh than in either India or Sri Lanka. The excitement reached a crescendo in the hours before the opening ceremony and it is poised to spill over when the opening game gets underway. India rarely play in front of a crowd in which they have virtually no support. That is likely to happen tomorrow. If Shakib's men are looking for a little more inspiration, they will hear it reverberate around the Shere Bangla.

Team news
There was a fitness concern over Shafiul Islam, who bowled only five overs in the warm-up against Pakistan, but he is expected to be fit. Raqibul Hasan could make the XI ahead of Mohammad Ashraful and Bangladesh could also play two spinning allrounders in Mahmudullah and Naeem Islam.

Bangladesh (probable): 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Imrul Kayes, 3 Junaid Siddique, 4 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 5 Raqibul Hasan 6 Shakib Al Hasan (capt), 7 Mahmudullah, 8 Naeem Islam 9 Abdur Razzak, 10 Shafiul Islam, 11 Rubel Hossain.

After sitting out of both of India's warm-up matches with a groin niggle, Zaheer Khan bowled during India's net session and will lead the attack on Saturday. The major decision India will have to make is whether to play Kohli or Raina. Kohli has been in excellent form, but an extra left-hander, Raina, could be useful in combating Bangladesh's left-arm spinners. Dhoni, however, had indicated a few days ago that Kohli could edge Raina out.

India (probable): 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Virat Kohli/Suresh Raina, 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Yusuf Pathan, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Ashish Nehra, 11 Munaf Patel.


Stats and trivia
Mirpur is easily Bangladesh's most successful ODI venue - they've won 18 matches here, which is three times the number they've won at their next-best venue. They've won 64 games in all, which means 28% of their ODI wins have come in Mirpur.
The last 12 day-night matches in Mirpur have all been won by the team batting second. Overall, in 16 day-night ODIs, the team batting first has won only three times.
India have won seven and lost three ODIs in Mirpur, but they've beaten Bangladesh in all five matches here. Three of those were day-night games, and in all of them India chased.
Most of India's top order has done well in Mirpur, with Gambhir, Dhoni, Kohli and Raina all averaging more than 50, and scoring at least one century here. For Bangladesh, Shakib and Tamim have scored two hundreds each in ODIs at this venue.
Quotes
"The guys have played enough cricket to cope with the pressure. We are not looking too far ahead. We will take it one game at a time and concentrate on the job at hand. I don't think it can get better than this. Playing a strong side like India has its advantages. We want to prove ourselves against the best."
Shakib Al Hasan on the eve of the beginning of Bangladesh's World Cup campaign.

"Being a co-host will always bring a lot of expectations. But we do not get bogged down by expectations. The important thing is to do the process right. We always look to put more emphasis on the process, rather than on winning, and this is what has made us a successful team."
MS Dhoni attempts to cocoon his team from the hype around India's chances at the World Cup.

Beautiful Bangladesh - School of life

World Cup searches for certainty

Once every four years, cricket meets to do some ironing. Over creases and conflicts, differences and discords and it tries to set out its most perfectly coordinated wardrobe for its disparate, argumentative global audience. For a sport where a day's play can last 24 hours - the toss held in Napier and the last ball bowled in Kingston - the World Cup actually shrinks planet cricket and tries to flatten it out. Once every four years, the Cup brings the sport's styles, philosophies, ambitions and dreams onto a smaller, relatively even field which becomes the centre of its universe.

Over the next six weeks, that field is South Asia: the game's biggest, noisiest, yet wealthiest neighbourhood. It is the most unpredictable of places but remains cricket's most vibrant and diverse. Since the last World Cup held here fifteen years ago, India has joined the game's elite and grown into a financial behemoth, Sri Lanka has made two World Cup finals and Bangladesh is inching towards the steps India took in the short game in the 1980s and Sri Lanka a decade later. The past, really, is another country.

It was the 50-over game that gave two of the host nations their street-cred and the chance to strut alongside the game's traditional western powers. Today as the very existence of the 50-over format is being questioned by pundits and ignored by spectators in some parts of the world, the World Cup returns to its most loyal constituency.

Unlike 1983 or 1996, the Cup's 10th edition has greater significance even before it begins: it is the one that will decide what course the 50-over game will take over the next few years. It will be the first World Cup to be played after the juggernaut called Twenty20 began to move and everything that happens in the 2011 event will have consequences impacting the game's immediate future. The ICC now calls this World Cup, "The Cup that Counts", and not because it is being played in the vicinity of Mr Moneybags. That tagline is a reminder of the World Cup's very primacy and is directed at both the game's audience and its advertisers, who are as distracted by the dazzle of Twenty20 as the players.

The ICC's 49-match, 43-day, 13-venue event is intended to be the brightest advertisement of the ODI format ,which from the 1980s, has kept cricket solvent and expanding.

What 2011 is being primed to do is to erase from memory the gloom and goof-ups of 2007, and through a long, endlessly drawn-out schedule, stoke merriment, interest and just the right kind of upsets. In South Asia, the World Cup has its best chance because here, unlike anywhere else in the world, cricket is behemoth. This is where an ODI featuring any of the three home teams will fill stadiums and switch TVs on in millions of homes. Cricket is the source of the hosts' national confidence and in 2011, nowhere more than in Bangladesh. Dhaka traffic was brought to a standstill to let the Canadian team bus through from airport to hotel as if it were carrying heads of state. Colombo's civic authorities have banned people around Premadasa Stadium from untidy habits like hanging out their clothes to dry or 'engaging in street games like hop scotch or cricket matches'. In India, the giant billboards showing cricketers snarling wearing body paint or selling real-estate, cover all commercial air space and Bollywood reports that the number of films set to be released in during the period has dropped from its average of three a week to merely one solitary braveheart.

This could be the time and place where the much-abused one-day international format, instead of undergoing its last gasp, finds its second wind. It will need to do so because already there is talk about trimming the size of the field in 2015 down to ten, which Graeme Swann described as, "taking the world out of the World Cup." In Australia, they are trying to turn a 100-over contest into "quarters" at the domestic level. Twenty20 leagues are being set up in all corners of the cricket world and the first international cricketers have turned down national contracts to join a new guild of travelling freelancers.

In the first stirrings of skirmish between country and club, cricket will need its world and this World Cup to stand to its full height. In must prove that cricket needs to treasure both its Test match cathedrals as well as its rock concert arenas. Three formats of the game can only co-exist if conflicting national loyalties find common ground. After the 2011 World Cup, the ICC will set in motion a four-year ODI league structure based on its current rankings to dissolve the ODI's general meaningless spin around random TV-centric, fizzy-drink and mobile-phone Cups and give the format 'context'. It is why this Cup actually counts.

Already there is grumbling about its duration - compared to 2007, there are two fewer teams in the competition and yet only two less group games. For over a month, matches will pop up around three countries and 13 venues before suddenly moving to a knockout that will last all of 10 breathless days. There is however far less little objection voiced about the format that leans heavily towards the game's heavyweights. The admission of the same by tournament director Ratnakar Shetty was met with a gulp of acceptance as is the general vagueness around the venues, sequence and order of the quarter-finals.

The 2011 World Cup's attempt to "control the controllables" and thus prevent India v Pakistan turning into Ireland v Bangladesh is so all-encompassing, that it gives rise to an uncontrollable temptation to summon the Norse gods of mischief.

If the event has plenty of close contests that reflect the impact of the Twenty20 format on the 50-over game, the World Cup will help sustain faith in one-dayers. There are expected to be higher totals, more sixes and the full range of 21st century improvisational shot-making. Twenty20 cricket has given batsmen, what Harbhajan Singh calls a greater "liberty and confidence" to take risks. The ripple effect of this laissez faire batting mindset in a World Cup semi-final will be far removed from what happens in a domestic micro-mini bash, so the Cup's most successful hitter could well be its clearest thinker.

During the Cup, the more accomplished of the free-strikers, like Chris Gayle could find another mega-gear; there are predictions of the first World Cup innings of 200-plus and the rejigged role of the conventional 'pinch-hitter'. From being the slogger in the first 15, he must now be the man who can give his team's innings its 'kick' in the home straight of the last five or ten overs. Bring on the tactical gymnastics that are Powerplay calculations and the technological mire that is the UDRS. The 2011 World Cup promises to be peppered with both idiocy and incident.

At the moment though, most World Cup discussions centre around the event's Indian epicentre and the team's standing as the tournament's heavily-publicised, frequently-tailed and loudly-proclaimed favourites. That supremacy is determined by India's growing ability to create a foothold in the most slippery of games, the general public buoyancy around the team's success and ICC rankings, and the sheer dominant force and decibel levels of its home crowds.

Yet, never mind what the bookies say, there are others behind them with as good a chance and fewer expectations or, as MS Dhoni calls it, 'responsibilities' in the course of the six weeks of cricket. Since the last Champions Trophy, of all the leading teams in the event, India (who have played 43 ODIs, more than any other nation in this period) have 24 wins and 18 losses, are fourth in terms of win-loss ratio. Australia have had the best win-loss ratio with 26 wins and 11 losses, followed by South Africa's18 wins and eight losses and Sri Lanka's 18 wins and nine losses. This does not take into account the Pakistan team who can write the most dramatic stories in the game, five-time semi-finalists New Zealand, and West Indies, who want, as their manager Richie Richardson says, "to prove to the world that we can play cricket". (Fifteen years ago, it would have been thought that Richardson was being ironic.) All of these teams have had a grim 18 months - Pakistan lost its right to stage 14 games at home following Lahore - while in Bangladesh, there is a general sense of optimism that the moment to take their great leap forward has arrived.

The balance of whether this will be a batsman's World Cup or a display of global spinning skills is now up in the air with many theories and possibilities following the warm-up games. Australia will put their weight behind their quickest bowlers, Sri Lanka pack their side with part-time spinners to back Muttiah Muralitharan, and even South Africa have come armed with slow bowling options and a pace attack that is not half bad. India have are looking to pack in the part-timers as its quick bowling strength now rests on one fragile strike bowler and a fellow who can be both trouble-shooter and trouble-maker.

It is how all this will hold together in the last ten days of the World Cup, during the knockouts that is being chewed over. Shyam Balasubramanian, Singapore-based technocrat-fan, recently wrote in with an argument that in definitive games needing "higher-risk strategies", teams must have two "go-to bowlers" during the restriction overs and "three manic-hitters" who can produce 120 in 80 balls three matches in a row. According to him, the only two countries that have them - Australia and Pakistan. Enough to start off squabbling and howling 24 hours before a ball has been bowled.

Imran Khan, speaking the other night on Indian television had a theory of his own: no matter what was happening within teams, every World Cup set its rhythm in motion (which has little to do with theme songs or opening ceremonies). "A World Cup gathers its own momentum", Khan said, and teams had to go with it. Those who adapted as often as they needed to were the most successful.

The 2011 World Cup may have been engineered for certainty, but finds itself in an environment full of variables. Be warned, the gods of mischief must be chuckling.

Sreesanth replaces injured Praveen

Praveen Kumar, the India fast bowler, has been ruled out of the World Cup due to an injured elbow and will be replaced by Sreesanth. The decision comes a day after Praveen underwent a fitness test at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore to gauge whether he had recovered from the injury sustained before the start of the one-day series in South Africa last month.

Praveen, 24 had been sent back immediately from South Africa as a precautionary measure to recuperate at the NCA. The recovery did not go as planned, however, and he consulted Dr Andrew Wallace, a London-based surgeon who has treated many Indian players including Sachin Tendulkar. Praveen has been a regular with the Indian one-day side for the past couple of years and was set to be a certain starter in the World Cup, but his injury healed too slowly to allow him to participate in the global tournament.

Sreesanth has established himself in the Test side but has been on the fringes of the one-day outfit. He has played only 51 one-dayers in more than five years since his debut in 2005, and has a bloated career economy rate of 6.01. But he proved effective in the two ODIs he's played over the past 12 months, bagging seven wickets for 77 runs.

The other fast bowlers in the Indian squad are Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel.

Morgan to miss World Cup with fractured finger

Eoin Morgan, England's star one-day batsman, has been ruled out of the World Cup due to a broken middle finger on his left hand, and Ravi Bopara has been brought into the squad in his place. England's coach Andy Flower announced the news at a press conference at Heathrow Airport on England's return from Australia, and confirmed that Morgan would undergo surgery that would keep him out of the entire tournament.

"His [Morgan's] finger needs to be operated on, so that's a serious loss to us," Flower said. "He's been a very influential limited-overs performer for us since he joined the England team. Ravi Bopara, who is a very exciting young cricketer in his own right, is going to be joining us and is flying back from the West Indies where he is playing with the England Lions. He'll be arriving in the country tomorrow and joining us on the flight to Dhaka."

The news of Morgan's unavailability comes as a serious blow to England as he has been one of their most valuable players in ODIs over the past two years, something his captain Andrew Strauss recognised. "For the last 12 to 18 months, he's been the stand-out batsman for us in one-day cricket," Strauss told the press at Heathrow. "We all see the World Cup as a forum for showcasing your skills, so he's bitterly disappointed to be missing out. But that's the nature of the beast: you are going to get injuries. Unfortunately, his has come along at a bad time, but thankfully he's a young bloke and is going to get opportunities in the future. For the time being we will have to make do without him, but it's something we are prepared for and I'm sure we'll be able to do."

Flower tried putting a positive spin on events, mentioning how Bopara's bowling might be an asset. "No-one is irreplaceable and Ravi is a very talented and exciting player, and brings a bit of medium-pace bowling to help the captain in those middle overs," Flower said. "We are confident that the 15 guys who we have will gel together and perform powerfully."

Bopara was not a part of the England ODI squad for the series in Australia, and played only four ODIs in 2010, with a best of 45 not out from 16 balls against Bangladesh at Edgbaston. He did score two half-centuries in India the last time England toured the country in 2008, and has played in subcontinent conditions during the IPL, in which he played for Kings XI Punjab.

"[Bopara] hasn't had a chance to play for us recently; he has been playing a lot of cricket around the world and he is desperate to get back in the ranks," said Strauss. "This is his opportunity and we like what he can bring to the game, his ability to clear the ropes in the middle overs is going to be important to us, and he is going to be a worthy addition to the squad."

Morgan sustained the fracture to the middle finger of his left hand during the fourth ODI in Adelaide, but carried on playing for a further two matches in the mistaken belief that it was merely bruised. "He didn't think it was serious at all, but it got worse the more he played and practised," said Flower. "The pain grew worse, and therefore the medical team got onto it and found that it was worse than the bruise originally suggested."

He met with a specialist on Monday, immediately after his arrival back in the UK, and it is understood that the fracture extends up to the knuckle, a problem which increases the risk of dislocation. Morgan was told that surgery was the only viable option, which would keep him on the sidelines for at least six weeks.

England are currently sweating on the fitness of five more members of their 15-man World Cup squad. Paul Collingwood received an injection on Monday, having suffered a back spasm during the penultimate ODI in Sydney. Tim Bresnan is stepping up his training having succumbed to a calf strain, while Ajmal Shahzad's hamstring injury is still causing concern.

Stuart Broad is believed to be on track having torn a stomach muscle back in December, while Graeme Swann is set to test his injured knee in the nets on Tuesday, having missed the latter stages of the Australia tour. "I'm not fully fit but I'm getting there," he told BBC Radio 5 live. "I haven't had a bowl yet. I'm a little bit nervous about it but I should be fine."

Sohail Tanvir out of the World Cup

Sohail Tanvir, the left-arm seamer, has been ruled out of Pakistan's World Cup campaign after failing to complete a full rehabilitation from surgery for a knee problem that has dogged him for two years. He will be replaced by the promising young left-arm fast bowler Junaid Khan.

A PCB medical panel, after looking into a management report, said that though "the recovery from a knee operation was good, during the [New Zealand] tour it was observed that quick movements and pickup with weight particularly on the operated knee is hindering his mobility and requires him to take a few extra steps to balance himself before throwing. The medical team and team management have opined that Sohail Tanvir still requires time to attain 100% fitness before he can compete at international level."

Tanvir returned to international cricket on Pakistan's recent tour to New Zealand, where he played in five of the six ODIs. Though he bowled some good spells at the death, he looked generally rusty, picking up just 4 wickets and going for over seven runs an over. Pakistan won the series 3-2.

His batting, however, seemed to have improved, as evidenced by an audacious, unbeaten 14 off 6 balls to seal the fifth ODI. Until this series, he hadn't played for Pakistan in an ODI since May 2009 and at one stage, the knee problems threatened to end his career.

His misfortune, however, is to the benefit of Khan, who has been close to a national call-up for nearly a year now. The 21-year-old emerged at about the same time as Mohammad Amir, playing alongside him at U-19 level for Pakistan. He has been a consistent wicket-taker at domestic level, in all forms of the game, and given that he plays most of his cricket for one of the traditionally weaker regions, Abbottabad (in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province), it is an impressive record.

Former Test spinner and selector Iqbal Qasim, who first picked him for junior level, believes he has immense potential and was impressed initially by his pace as well as stamina. Some observers, at that early stage, felt Khan might make it to the national side before Amir, though he hasn't, they say, developed as swiftly. But he has been playing for the Pakistan A side regularly now, and is familiar at least with where Pakistan will play their first game of the World Cup: last September he took nine wickets in a 'Test' against Sri Lanka A in Hambantota, where Pakistan will take on Kenya on January 23.

Afridi named World Cup captain - report

Shahid Afridi has reportedly been named captain of Pakistan's World Cup squad, according to Associated Press. The decision ends weeks of uncertainty over who will lead the side in the global tournament starting later this month.

Pakistan were the only side of the 14 participating teams that hadn't named their captain when the World Cup squads were announced in January, fuelling debate over whether Misbah-ul-Haq, the Test captain, could take over from limited-overs leader Afridi.

Afridi has been Pakistan's ODI captain over the last year but just before the New Zealand tour began, a number of key players and team management officials raised concerns with the board over his captaincy. The development placed the board in a quandary, between players and the captain, ultimately compelling them to delay the announcement of a leader.

Earlier this week, the PCB chairman Ijaz Butt had travelled to New Zealand, where the team has just completed their first one-day series win in more than two years, to hold discussions with Afridi, senior players and management officials over who should lead the side.

Pakistan play the final match of their six-ODI series against New Zealand on Saturday in Auckland.

Sehwag 'fully fit' for World Cup

Virender Sehwag, India's vice-captain for the World Cup, has said that he is "fully fit" for the tournament that begins on February 19. Sehwag missed India's five-match one-day series following the Tests in South Africa to attend to a shoulder injury, but says his recovery is well on track.

"I was feeling some pain in my shoulder," Sehwag told Indian news channel CNN-IBN. "So [I thought it was] better to quit the South Africa one-dayers. I didn't want to get injured in South Africa tour and miss the World Cup. So I came back and went to Germany to see a couple of doctors. I got a couple of injections and now I'm fine.

"I am going to the National Cricket Academy [in Bangalore] and will spend a couple of days there, to check everything - if I can bowl and throw also but if I can't, then I'll let them know. But yes, at the moment I'm fully fit."

Sehwag is wary of the opening game against Bangladesh, who had derailed India's 2007 World Cup campaign with a shock win. "Because we're playing the opening game against them in Bangladesh, Bangladeshi people are expecting them to beat us again. But this time we have to prepare well … You can say it is a revenge game for us and we won't take the game lightly. We will give our best shot and we will come hard on Bangladesh."

Sehwag was confident of India's chances against the other major teams in Group B - South Africa, England and West Indies. "When we played against England last time, we won 5-0 and against South Africa we did well in South Africa and we have done well; when Sachin Tendulkar got the double hundred [in Gwalior], we won the series. West Indies have good players like Pollard and Gayle, if they click then maybe it's difficult for us but India also have very good players."

Bangalore to host India-England game

The ICC has confirmed the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore as the venue for the India-England World Cup game that was originally supposed to be held in Kolkata. There was no change in the date of the match - it will be held on February 27.

"This decision now clarifies and gives us certainty over the fixture," ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said. "We can now work with our various partners and stakeholders to make sure that the match - along with the rest of the tournament - is all it should be."

In a letter to the BCCI, the ICC also outlined the pending work that had to be done to get Eden Gardens ready for the World Cup. Kolkata was originally allotted three other matches for the tournament, the first of which is on March 15. The ICC said an inspection team will visit Eden Gardens on February 7 to see the progress made before deciding on the fate on those three matches.

The BCCI had nominated Bangalore as its preferred venue for the India-England match after the ICC had ruled out Kolkata last week.

The India-England fixture will now be the most high profile World Cup game for Bangalore, which hosts four other group games. Only one of those feature the home team, while all of them pit a minnow against a strong side.