The lamp of hope for Bangladesh’s semifinal berth in the 8th ICC Champions Trophy is hanging on a critical equation as the bottom three teams of Group A all have a chance to advance to the last four with England.
Bangladesh will play New Zealand in their 3rd and last group game at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, starting at 3:30pm (Bangladesh time) on Friday.
The winners of the Bangladesh-New Zealand match can qualify if Australia lose their last game against England, which is scheduled to be held at Edgbaston, Birmingham on Saturday (June 10).
If Australia could manage win against England, then both Bangladesh and New Zealand will be eliminated from the race irrespective of any other equations.
After playing out their 2nd matches each in the four team group, England secured all-win four points from two games to confirm their semifinals berth.
Australia is in the 2nd slot with two points after sharing the points with New Zealand and Bangladesh. They played two washed-out matches to collect their points.
Having identical one point each, Bangladesh are in the 3rd place and ahead of the New Zealand by virtue of a better run rate. Both sides conceded one defeat each against the host England.
Bangladesh started their group campaign with 8-wicket loss against defending runners-up England in the tournament opener and shared the match points with Australia in their 2nd match.
The first match of the New Zealand against Australia was washed out while in their 2nd match they conceded an 87-run defeat against England.
In their previous 21 ODI encounters, Bangladesh managed nine wins against New Zealand, including their last meeting in Dublin just prior to the Champions Trophy in May.
Bangladesh squad: Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, Mahmudullah Riyad, Mosaddek Hossain Saikat, Mashrafe Bin Mortaza(captain), Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Sunzamul Islam, Mehedi Hasan and Shafiul Islam.
New Zealand squad: Kane Williamson (captain), Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Neil Broom, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne, Jimmy Neesham, Jeetan Patel, Luke Ronchi, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee and Ross Taylor.
