Bangladesh celebrate their famous victory against India in the 2007 Cricket World Cup
Complacency in sport is one of the most feared reasons for defeats. And amidst some strong teams in the World Cup tournament, there is one particular team which enjoys spoiling others party. The Bangladesh Cricket Team has proved to be the true party spoilers in the ICC Cricket World Cup.
Bangladesh was a late entrant to the ICC Cricket World Cup. They first participated in a World Cup in the year 1999 but quickly took the cricketing world by surprise. First they beat Scotland by 22 runs and later they staged a big upset by beating Pakistan by 62 runs in the group stages. Although they couldn’t advance further but they had made their presence felt at the International level. The 2003 World Cup was a forgettable tour for them as they could not win a single game from six matches. But it was in the 2007 World Cup that Bangladesh created the biggest spark. Bangladesh, then the lowest ranked test team, defeated India by 5 wickets in the group stage. To add the icing on the cake, Bangladesh then defeated Bermuda in their final match to gain entry into Super 8 stage, leaving India eliminated out of the tournament. India did the mistake of taking Bangladesh lightly and their elimination was a big humiliation for the cricket crazy nation. Bangladesh, better known as ‘minnows’, then caused another upset by beating South Africa by 67 runs. Bangladesh couldn’t advance further but the tournament single-handedly changed the mind-set on how teams used to treat Bangladesh. They were certainly more than just ‘minnows’ and by now, all other teams started to take them seriously.
In 2011 World Cup where Bangladesh were the co-hosts, expectation levels from the fans surged rapidly. And Bangladesh once again stepped up the heat by beating Ireland and Netherlands. The upset in this edition was their two wicket win over England. As a result Bangladesh came so close to advance to the next stage but lost out on an inferior run-rate to West Indies, after both the teams were tied with equal points. And this makes Bangladesh so dangerous team in the World Cup since they don’t have anything to loose.
Bangladesh has improved a lot in the ODI format in the recent times, and they have put the pressure on the other teams. In the last edition of the Asia Cup, they beat both, India and Sri Lanka, to enter the finals of the tournament. And in the finals, they gave their opposition Pakistan a run for their money before losing the close encounter by just 2 runs. And this once again puts the limelight back onto Bangladesh as they’ll love to be party spoilers once again. Other teams beware.
