Asia Cup 2010: Bangladesh can win against a luckless Pakistan
The final match for the two teams ousted from the race for the final of the Asia cup cricket tournament, are set to face each other in their last league match of the series.
Despite the academic nature of the match, there is a lot that both teams can achieve at the Rangiri International cricket stadium in Dambulla.
Pakistan will be entering the match seeking a win to avoid matching their worst ever run in One-Day International cricket that stands at ten matches.
They have lost nine on the trot since winning the opening match of their one-day series against the New Zealanders in UAE last year.
While on the other hand the Bangladeshis who are all too familiar with long string of defeats have a golden chance of redeeming their ever dipping fortunes in international cricket by catching a Pakistan team down on confidence after a morale shattering loss to the Indians in a last over cliff-hanger on Saturday.
The Bangladesh Tigers have failed to make an impact at the international level, and have been consistently lacking in their ability of winning matches despite an improvement in their batting and bowling resources.
They have been struggling to gel together as one unit in all forms of the game, and turn the abundance of talent into results.
However time is on their side, testimony of that fact is the average of their squad that is around the 25 years mark. The national selectors and board management is hoping that their team sticks it out together for a few years and transform their abilities into something special a couple of years down the line.
For Pakistan the recent months have been all about off the field controversies and scandals that have rocked the team in no uncertain terms and even with their penchant for controversies the last few months have been arguably the worst ever.
Coach Waqar Younis who himself had many fall outs with the management in his hey days, when he was one of the best bowlers around admitted that the damage done recently has been worse than what the team had suffered in the last 25 years.
Subsequently the captaincy of the team floated from one man to another, and now rests with Shahid Afridi considered by many a natural leader of men.
However he has had a tough start to his new role, and although the team under him reached the semi-final of the T20 World championship in Caribbean last month, their performance was only impressive in three out of their six games in the event.
In the Asia Cup they fought tooth and nail in the first two games against Sri Lanka and India, yet luck deserted them at the end both times and the men in green were left ruing missed opportunities for the umpteenth time in recent months.
Their nine match losing streak started in November last year, and even in these defeats they have come very close of winning yet have succeeded in blowing away their chances at the end.
In the final match of the series against New Zealand, Pakistan was down and out for the count, when their last wicket fell with 120 odd runs needed.
Tail-enders Mohammad Amir and Saeed Ajmal batted like proper batsmen and added a world record 100 plus runs for the tenth wicket, but Ajmal fell when Pakistan was within reach of a remarkable win.
After surrendering the first four matches of the five match ODI series against Australia tamely the men in green had their best chances of a face-saving win in the last match at Perth, when they had the hosts tottering at eight wickets down.
Even from that position they failed to close down the match as the Aussies registered an unprecedented 5-0 whitewash against them.
In the opening match of the Asia Cup, Shahid Afridi smashed one of the most remarkable hundreds in the history of the game yet it was not enough.
All in all the match tomorrow promises an engrossing battle as two teams with battered reputations try to salvage their lost pride.
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