|| CF Correspondent ||

With the World Cup being wide open all of a sudden, Bangladesh is set to launch their World Cup semifinal mission afresh by taking on a spirited Afghanistan at the Rose Bowl in Southampton on Monday.

The match starts at 3.30 PM.

The Tigers’ prospect to reach the last four race looked bleak following their 48-run defeat at the hands of might Australia on last Thursday.

But Sri Lanka did a stunner by upstaging tournament favourites England, a win that also did Bangladesh a favour. Their semifinal hope is revived out of nothing but based on the condition that they would have to win their rest of the three matches.

But the spirited show that Afghanistan put up against India is enough to leave Bangladesh in worried state. More worrying factor is that Bangladesh will take on Afghanistan at the same ground where India’s much-vaunted batting line up crumbled against Afghanistan’s three-prong spin attack, consisted with Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi.

Afghanistan eventually lost the match by 11 runs but such sort of defeat against a side, full with world class batsmen and bowlers, would be confidence booster for sure.

And Bangladesh actually have no reason to underestimate Afghanistan even though they held the advantage in face-to-face battle, winning four and losing three in seven encounters.

The Tigers also crushed Afghanistan by 105 runs in 2015 World Cup, hosted jointly by Australia-New Zealand, their only meeting in the cricket’s biggest extravaganza so far.

But in the last Asia Cup held at Dubai in 2018, Bangladesh tasted a humiliating 136-run defeat to Afghans, before sealing a narrow three-run victory in return-leg match. Bangladesh also lost a match to Afghanistan in Asia Cup in 2014 at their home soil.

As far as the multinational tournament including World Cup is concerned, they faced off each other four times and the result locked at 2-2.

So the stat suggested Afghans were never a pushover for Bangladesh. But the Tigers still should be absolutely favourite in this World Cup match, given their performance, cricket culture and history.

While Afghanistan have no performance of worth apart from the match against India, Bangladesh had already beat two top teams in South Africa and West Indies. They tasted a narrow (two wicket) defeat to New Zealand and put up huge fight in pursuit of 382-run target against Australia before going down by 48 runs. Only match in which they were hapless was against England, losing the game by 106 runs.

It is widely believed Bangladesh also could beat Sri Lanka had the game not washed out due to rain.