Tigers take on Kuwait today

Bangladesh's campaign of retaining cricket's gold medal in the Asian Games begins today as the Tigers take on Kuwait in the fourth quarterfinal at the Yeonhui Cricket Ground in Incheon.
The match starts at 11:00am Bangladesh time.
On paper, the match against Kuwait, an associate member of the ICC playing in the sixth division of the World Cricket League, is expected to be a stroll in the park for Tigers. Kuwait have reached the quarterfinals with some luck after a coin toss rewarded them a win in a rain-marred match against Maldives, following their nine-wicket defeat against Nepal in the opening match of the competition.
But the Tigers themselves have not been in the best of forms in the current calendar year and they are want to take the match against Kuwait as a stage to boost their own confidence as well as have a first-hand experience of the newly-laid pitches at the Yeonhui Cricket Ground.
“Every match is important in the knockout stage. We will be hoping to win against Kuwait convincingly. If we can post a win over Kuwait, it will boost our confidence before the next match, which will possibly be against a strong Sri Lanka side. The rest will depend on how we handle things,” said captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza before training yesterday.
The Tigers were supposed to have a net session at the match venue from 12:00pm yesterday but they had to spend two hours on the road as the driver carrying them drove to the Songdo LNG Baseball ground as per previous schedule. The team management later convinced the driver to drive to the match venue, where they had to share the nets with Sri Lanka, before they watched the Lankans beat South Korea by 122 runs to confirm their semifinal berth.
“We are playing this tournament with a mindset to help us in the future. If we can win convincingly, it will be great but winning is the most important thing,” said Mashrafe.
The wickets at the Yeonhui Cricket ground are likely to be low and slow, atypical of wickets in Bangladesh, which Mashrafe believes will help his side.
However, Mashrafe was a bit worried about the possibility of rain, which may force the match to be decided on coin toss unless the minimum overs are played. But the good news is there is no forecast of rain for Wednesday in Incheon even though there is rain forecast for Thursday.