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World Cup: Under achievers set to meet over achievers
The Associated PressPublished: April 10, 2007
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: One-day cricket's biggest under achiever England comes face to face with specialist giant killer Bangladesh when the World Cup arrives in Barbados.
Like England, Bangladesh has one Super 8s victory so far, an impressive win over high-ranking South Africa. Like England, it has also lost to New Zealand and Australia, the two in-form teams of the tournament so far.
England has limped along, beating Ireland but losing to Sri Lanka and Australia in Super 8s action and New Zealand in group play. Neither team is strongly placed to progress to the semifinals.
England coach Duncan Fletcher was forced to defend his embattled captain and opener Michael Vaughan on Monday from criticism that scoring 12 runs in four World Cup innings is not enough.
Since returning from a knee injury which sidelined him for a year, Vaughan has scored only 126 runs in nine innings.
"I believe he is a good one-day batsman, but he has got to get back to realizing his true potential," said Fletcher. "He batted very well at the start of this tour and got a good 62 in the warm-up match against Australia, which was exactly what we needed up front.
"It's not as if he's batting badly, he's batting very well in the nets and he looks and feels at the top of his game. He's putting himself under pressure when he's had a few bad knocks and maybe the captaincy is getting to him.
"Having chatted to him he looks very confident and he is still full of belief about his captaincy, but he probably just puts pressure on himself knowing as captain he has to go out there and get runs."
Fletcher is convinced that Vaughan's astute captaincy compensates for what he sees as a temporary loss of form.
After Bangladesh, England also has to face South Africa and West Indies to have even a slim chance of qualifying for the semifinals.
Kevin Pietersen, officially rated as the world's best one-day batsman, ended a two-year barren spell with his fourth career hundred against Australia on Sunday in England's seven-wicket defeat in Antigua.
That century is the only one by an England batsman against Test-class opposition in the last five World Cups - a statistic which highlights their woeful campaigns since 1992.
The newly rebuilt Kensington Oval will be opened to international cricket for the first time on Wednesday and tournament pitch consultant Andy Roberts, a former West Indies paceman, says it will probably be the opposite of the slow, low grinder Bangladesh won on in Guyana.
"The wicket in Barbados has been playing fairly well in the practice games," he said. "There have been lots of runs. The bounce and carry has been good."
Bangladesh has already beaten India and South Africa in the Caribbean and another major scalp would raise some major questions about world standards.
But coach Dav Whatmore, who transformed Sri Lanka into world beaters, has worked hard on ironing out weaknesses in fielding and bowling, making up for his team's lack of big pacemen by exploiting his spin options.
Whatmore may play newcomer Farhad Reza, a 20-year-old allrounder who arrived in Barbados on Sunday to replace injured paceman Tapash Baisya, if the wicket looks unsuited to playing three spinners.
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