Bangladesh and the semi-final line up ...

Bangladesh, against South Africa, once again looked hungry, focused, united & sharp. They were looking ditto when they forced India out of this world cup. They proved a point here - the win against India was not a fluke. I have really started liking this team. The India's tour of Bangladesh, especially when BCCI is talking about sending young team there, suddenly looks like a very interesting tour now.

Coming back to world cup, I am very pleased with this upset for a couple of reasons. Both of them revolve around the fact that the upset is inline with my predicitons.

We all know how tough it is to make any predicitons in modern-day cricket and I had dared to make one on the semi-final line-up. I fell on my face when one of my favourites - India was shown the door very early on. But then I had predicted that Australia may be on of the top four thereby displacing one of my top four. In this case, it had to be India sadly. However, I would be glad if at least the other four namely Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia & West Indies do make it to last four. I have never liked South Africa because their bowling to me looks so ineffective and I am not a big fan of their late middle order as well except ofcourse Boucher. So, with this upset, atleast South Africa is no longer a surity in the last four. Ofcourse SA still stands a better chance than Eng or WI to make it into last four based on current form and maybe ICC rankings. But then, WI now has an outside chance as well of making it, if they win their remaining 3 matches, all of which are against decent opponents (and I know Bangladesh is one of them). I so much want WI to fire in this last leg and make an impact. They are capable of stopping Australia; they have done it in the recent past.

The other reason why I am pleased is that I had also predicted a few more upsets in the Super 8 especially at the hands of Bangladesh. One down, maybe one more to go (hope it is not WI this time).

Switching the context and focusing back on Bangladesh, I wonder if we have another Sri Lanka in the making. I remember watching cricket as kid and observing all teams beat the heck out of Sri Lanka which was the worst team those days (of course we did not have Kenya and Bangladesh). What happened a decade later in 1996 is history now. In Bangladesh, we have a team with a lot of very young and promising cricketers who, with a few more years, could mature into world beaters. If that happens, it will do a world of good to cricket in general. And maybe a decade from now, we will have 30 teams participating in the cricket world cup and a new world champion that was considered a minnow 10 years back. Ah! What a wish ...