Tigers clutching at straws for inspiration
The Bangladesh team has already resigned to its fate in the ongoing ODI World Cup.
Almost nothing has gone right for the Tigers in the tournament and after suffering six comprehensive defeats on the trot, the players find themselves at the bottom of a pit of despair.
The Tigers are already out of contention for the semifinal and their chances to qualify for the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy are also dangling by a thread with two games remaining in the World Cup.
While drowning in the misery of their own creation, Shakib Al Hasan and his troops must be clutching at straws for some inspiration ahead of their next match against Sri Lanka.
Fortunately for the demoralised Tigers, the venue of Monday's match, the Arun Jaitley stadium in Delhi, has some inspiration on offer.
Almost exactly four years ago, on November 3, 2019, Bangladesh clinched their maiden Twenty20 win against India at this venue.
The situation back then was also quite dire as that was the Bangladesh team's first match after Shakib's two-year ban (one year suspended) from the ICC over keeping undisclosed contacts with bookmakers.
A Bangladesh team without Shakib and Tamim Iqbal, who had opted out of the tour, stunned the hosts in the first game of the series and clinched a historic seven-wicket win in Delhi.
In that match, the experienced duo of Mushfiqur Rahim and skipper Mahmudullah Riyad made sure the Tigers go past the winning line to somewhat make up for their failure in that infamous one run defeat to India in the ICC T20 World Cup in 2016.
Once again, expectations will be high on Mahmudullah, who is the leading run-getter for the Tigers so far, scoring 274 runs in seven games, which included a hundred against South Africa.
Interestingly, similar to the match four years back, Delhi's air quality is once again in the news ahead of the match.
Before that match, Liton Das had drawn extra attention from the Indian media when he wore a mask while in training.
On Saturday, skipper Shakib also wore a mask to the team's training session in the evening. This was the team's first training session in Delhi after they called off the training the previous day due to the toxic haze.
The Sri Lankan team also cancelled its training on Saturday but the Tigers decided to brave out the poor air quality in the evening.
The players, however, looked demotivated and going through the motions in training, like a team which is waiting for its misery to end.