Bangladesh asked to bowl at Eden

The Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards won the toss and decided to bat first against Bangladesh in their sixth World Cup fixture at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata today.

"We'll have a bat first, wicket looks good. Hopefully, we can score quick. The good thing is it is a quick turnaround, so we need to leave the loss behind. We've set high expectations on ourselves, we need to just focus on the games to come. Barring the last game, we've been playing a lot of good cricket," Edwards said at the toss. 

"We have to do better with batting and bowling, especially in the powerplay. If we can do that, the momentum will be with us. We've got a lot of Bangladeshis who have travelled across the border, plus in Kolkata we speak the same language, have a similar culture," said Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan.

Bangladesh made two changes to the playing XI, with fit-again Taskin Ahmed replacing Hasan Mahmud and Sheikh Mahedi Hasan replacing Nasum Ahmed. 

Both teams have two points each from five games, and a defeat here would extinguish any mathematical opportunity that is left for them for making it to the semifinals.  

The last time the two sides met was at the 2011 ICC World Cup when the hosts won by six wickets in Chattogram. However, the second-round encounter of the ICC Trophy in Kuala Lumpur in 1997 remains vivid in the minds of cricket fans in the country.

The rain-curtailed game against the Dutch, which Akram Khan and his team eventually won by three wickets en route to qualifying for the 1999 World Cup, is still regarded as a watershed moment in Bangladesh cricket history. 

TEAMS

Bangladesh: Tanzid Hasan, Litton Das, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Shakib Al Hasan(c), Mushfiqur Rahim(w), Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Mahedi Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Shoriful Islam

Netherlands: Vikramjit Singh, Max ODowd, Wesley Barresi, Colin Ackermann, Scott Edwards(w/c), Bas de Leede, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Logan van Beek, Shariz Ahmad, Aryan Dutt, Paul van Meekeren