Welcome to the alternative World Cup.
While cricket superpowers such as Australia, South Africa and West Indies chase the big prize, this is a sideshow within the showpiece limited-over competition where the second-rung cricket-playing countries will test each other.
The match at Kingsmead on Tuesday will pit Canada, the bottom-ranked team in the 14-nation competition, against Bangladesh, the newest entrant into test cricket.
Bangladesh results have proved that enthusiasm alone cannot suffice in top-notch competition. If enthusiasm were enough, it would be among the front-runners for the World Cup, such is the passion for the game in the South Asian country since it qualified for the 1999 World Cup.
Aware that its losing streak since becoming the 10th test-playing nation has become an acute embarrassment, its realistic ambitions for this World Cup are to beat Kenya – now possessing the one-day international grade — and Canada. In the other World Cup group are Namibia and the Netherlands who also are considered minnows in the game.
”We’ve learnt a lot from the top-grade exposure, but one’s got to be realistic,” says Bangladesh captain Khaled Mashud. ”Our prime target is to win the matches against Kenya and Canada,” he said. ”But we haven’t stopped dreaming about a big upset. On a given day we could give any fancied team a god run.”
Mashud, who has made known his intentions of quitting captaincy after the World Cup, is hoping to surpass its 1999 World Cup performance, where it defeated Scotland and Pakistan.
Mashud (27) is one of the four survivors from Bangladesh’s 1999 World Cup team that clinched its biggest win in a league match against Pakistan.
Accusation of match-fixing have taken away the sheen from that victory, and Bangladesh has since then lost 26 successive games.
Despite just three wins from 61 one-dayers, Bangladesh starts as the favorite against Canada, whose team comprises of expatriates from the West Indies, India, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand. All-rounder Khaled Mahmud, medium-pacer Manjural Islam and spinner Mohammad Rafique are the seasoned players in Bangladesh squad, having featured in the last World Cup.
But the team’s main strength are batsmen Habibul Bashar and Mohammad Ashraful, all-rounder Alok Kapali and medium-pacers Tapash Baisya and Talha Jubair, all of whom are in their maiden World Cup. Canada, however, isn’t prepared to be swept aside. ”We’re not here to make the numbers, and we’ll prove that,” says Canada’s team manager Karam Gopaulsingh.
”Our ambition is to win a couple of games … We’ll hoping to be competitive against Bangladesh and Kenya,” he said.
Bangladesh is just a step above the minnows, being the last from their ranks to break into the 10-nation test family. It is also the major target for Canada and Kenya to test their abilities.
Canada’s captain Joe Harris (37) a former Barbados players, refuses to believe it’s a no-win situation for his team.
”Getting to the World Cup itself was a prize, but we’re looking to go further,” he said. ”Bangladesh is the obvious first target.” Canada qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1979 with a five-wicket win over Scotland in the third-place playoff in the 2001 ICC Trophy qualifying tournament.
Coached by former West Indies test batsman Gus Logie, Canada arrived for the World Cup from chilly weather back home which denied its players adequate practice.
The team, which features just five cricketers with first-class experience, has been forced to practice indoors since October due to intense cold.
The team is expected to rely heavily on John Davison, a right arm off spinner and defiant lower order batsman who plays for South Australia. He is one of the few Canadian-born players in the team along with Barry Seebaran, the slow left-arm orthodox spinner who came to limelight in the 1990 ICC Trophy in the Netherlands.
Canada’s previous World Cup appearance in 1979 was disastrous. It lost all its three games, and earned the dubious distinction of being dismissed for the lowest World Cup score — 45 against England in Manchester.
Qualifying for the World Cup by beating Scotland by five wickets in the third-spot playoff at the ICC Trophy has proved to be a boon with the International Cricket Council giving a substantial contribution for the game’s development.
”It will raise the profile of the game if not anything else,” Gopaulsingh said. – Sapa-AP