Oct 31th Pakistan vs Bangladesh Two Points Battle On The Line

The Pakistan vs Bangladesh will witness a contest between two Test-playing sides that will play to save their grace and finish the tournament on a high as they’re both on the verge of elimination from the tournament.

The match will be played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Tuesday (October 31).

After their loss to South Africa in the last match, Pakistan are almost out of the 2023 world cup that is being held in India.

The Men in Green were once aiming to lift the trophy in front of the Indian crowd, but now they’re looking to pack their stuff after a series of dismal events.

The visitors started off the tournament with two consecutive wins over the Netherlands and Sri Lanka, but six matches down those wins are the only victories they have had so far.

Six matches have been played and Pakistan have won only twice, gaining merely four points and standing at the sixth spot in the points table. Their last one-wicket loss to the Proteas shattered their hopes of making it to the semi-final.

The only way Pakistan can make it further in the tournament is if they win their three remaining matches that are against Bangladesh, New Zealand and England.

Moreover, either third-ranked New Zealand or fourth-ranked Australia will have to lose their remaining matches for Pakistan to make it.

The situation is itself very tricky and hence, Pakistan is almost out of the tournament.

As for Bangladesh, they have had a similar story in India this year.

Under Shakib Al Hasan, who's playing in his last world cup, the Bengal Tigers won just once in their six games in this tournament.

Their only win was against Afghanistan early in the event, they then went on to lose a handful of games on the trot to be dropped down to the ninth spot in the points table with just two points in hand.

Pakistan vs Bangladesh: Head-to-head in ODIs

In their 38 matches together, Pakistan has beaten Bangladesh on 33 occasions whereas the latter has won only five times. This shows that Pakistan have dominated bangladesh on most occasions, however, the story is a tad different in ODI world cups.

In their two meetings at the ODI world cups, both sides have won a game each. They have only met twice, first in 1999 and again at the 2019 world cup which was hosted and won by England.

Player to keep an eye on

Here are the list of players you should be aware of for Pakistan vs Bangladesh.

Mustafizur Rehman

Left-arm pacers are always a sight to behold when they come running in to bowl with the new ball. In the Pakistan vs Bangladesh showdown, we will be lucky to see this in both innings.

For Bangladesh, it is Mustafizur Rehman who is usually tasked with the responsibility of chipping early wickets. His variations and outswing gives him an edge over new bowlers.

With his flexible wrists, he has shown that he can be quite lethal for the batters in opening spells, especially right-handed openers that tend to play anything on the offside.

In the last contest against the Netherlands, Bangladesh lost the game, but Mustafizur was still the top performer with the ball.

The pace spearhead took two wickets and conceded only 36 runs. He had done his job for the team, helping the unit dismiss the opponents for only 229 runs. However, a below-average performance with the bat cost them the game in the run chase.

Rizwan

Mohammad Rizwan has been for Pakistan what fans expected Babar Azam to be. He’s been saving them from defeats far too often now.

The middle-order depends heavily on the wicket-keeper batsman. He is also Pakistan’s highest run-getter in the tournament so far with nearly 400 runs.

His partnership with world cup-debutant Abdullah Shafique helped the Men in Green beat Sri Lanka in a game where Pakistan made history by chasing down the highest target in the history of the ODI world cup.

Rizwan is not the best technically, but his ability to play spin on merit and rotate the strike quite often helps him notch big scores.

If Bangladesh want to avoid seeing Pakistan pile up a big score, they will have to get Rizwan’s wicket as early as they can.

Mahmudullah

Mahmdullah has been Bangladesh’s lone warrior with the bat in the middle order. Like Rizwan, he is sometimes left alone in the middle with big targets in sight.

The veteran batter and former skipper reads the game extremely well which allows him to change gear according to the situation of the game.

Bangladesh have had a few hiccups in their campaign leading up to the tournament, but one good thing that happened to them is the inclusion of Mahmudullah.

Shaheen

No swing and pace has hurt Shaheen Shah Afridi recently. But his sheer aggression has still earned him prized wickets in this tournament.

Shaheen Shah Afridi is Pakistan's high wicket-taker with 13 scalps to his name. He hasn’t quite been able to swing the new ball and be as lethal as he used to be with the new ball.

But his economical bowling in middle and death overs has been saving Pakistan quite a lot of runs.

Despite not being at his best, he picked up a five-wicket haul in Pakistan’s game against Australia. His efforts in late overs crippled the Kangaroos who were eyeing a 400+ target.

The Pakistan batsmen let the team down with the bat in hand, but Shaheen showed in the Australia game that he can be just as good in the late overs as he is in the opening spells.

Pakistan vs Bangladesh Match prediction

It seems like both sides are not playing their best cricket lately, but Pakistan are somehow in a better spot.

Pakistan regained some form in the last South Africa game and showed an aggressive intent to challenge the sides, something that has been missing in Bangladesh’s camp.

Babar Azam’s men are most likely to win the contest on Tuesday.