The Hindu : Sport : Australia starts overwhelming favourite

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Saturday, Mar 31, 2007
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Australia starts overwhelming favourite

S. Ram Mahesh

Bangladesh's opening bowlers could pose a problem or two

— PHOTO: AP

CONFIDENCE PERSONIFIED: Glenn McGrath believes that on current form Australia would be tough to beat.

St. Peter's: It's hard, even for those with the fecundity to create fictional self-contained worlds, to see Bangladesh defeating Australia in the Super Eight match here at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground on Saturday.

Australia plays a brand of cricket that isn't conducive to the shock upset — the side makes a habit of coming hard at its opponent hard early — leaving no one in doubt who's in charge. It seeks to squash any seedling of hope, any stem of belief that may have taken impertinent root.

Array of talent

Australia has the players to back up the intent; vicious, confident game-breakers with bat and ball, and in the field. The World champion has many ways to hurt a side, and like every winner is a ruthless front-runner. Once it snatches momentum, it's almost impossible to redress the balance.

"If we go out and play the way we have I can't really see any team getting close to us," said Australian seamer Glenn McGrath, one of the best ever at what he does.

"That is the way we've been. End of the day, I don't say anything I don't believe. It is just embedded in the Australians.In any Australian sport it seems that attitude is carried right across the board."

Aussie attitude

It's an attitude that has helped Australia remain undefeated in its last 22 World Cup matches, dating back to 1999.

"We've been so successful over such a long time, we know how to win, what we've to do," said McGrath. "When you walk on the field you just have to look around you, the guys that are walking with you. There are some amazing players, some of the greats of all time. It does give you a lot of confidence."

Such has been its dominance in the 2007 World Cup that as captain Ricky Ponting pointed out with relish it's easy to forget Australia came to the tournament on a slew of losses. "It was probably the perfect build-up for us," said McGrath. "You don't want to come into the tournament in peak form. There are no thoughts of any negativity from the Australian side at all."

The great Australian team of the last decade has had two major failings: quality finger spin on dusty tracks and quality swing bowling. But, no team has consistently been able to exploit either weakness.

Bangladesh has a pair of opening bowlers who can swing the ball in Mashrafe Mortaza and Syed Rasel, and three left-arm finger spinners. On paper, they don't stand a chance against the formidable Australian batting line-up.

But, New Zealand, which lost a warm-up game to Habibul Bashar's team, got the sense that Bangladesh's bowlers could prove dangerous in conditions that helped them. On the evidence of Thursday's showing, the track here will offer seam movement. Whether Mortaza and Rasel can hit the right regions regularly enough will determine one of the battles.

Hogg impresses

The one facet that did concern Australia as it headed to the World Cup was its bowling. After Shane Warne's retirement, the side lacked a match-winning spinner. Brad Hogg, the left-arm wrist spinner, has come along nicely. He's the kind of bowler lesser sides dread for they haven't seen enough of his species.

The fast-bowlers were challenged once, by South Africa, and didn't respond particularly well till Shane Watson's brilliance in the field brought the side back into the game.

McGrath, if he plays on Saturday, will have the opportunity to go past Wasim Akram's haul of 55 wickets, and become the World Cup's highest wicket-taker. "Guys like Akram are sort of heroes of mine," said McGrath who has 54 World Cup victims. "He is known as one of the best bowlers of all time. To finally go past him, if I get a couple of more wickets, that would be something special."

The teams (from): Australia: Ricky Ponting (Capt.), Adam Gilchrist (wk), Nathan Bracken, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Matthew Hayden, Brad Hodge, Brad Hogg, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Stuart Clark, Glenn McGrath, Andrew Symonds, Shaun Tait and Shane Watson.

Bangladesh: Habibul Bashar (Capt.), Shariar Nafees, Tamim Iqbal, Aftab Ahmed, Saqibul Hasan, Mohammad Ashraful, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Mohammad Rafique, Abdur Razzak, Mashrafe Mortaza, Shahadat Hossain, Tapash Baisya, Syed Rasel, Rajin Saleh and Javed Omar.

Umpires: Aleem Dar (Pak) and Billy Bowden (Nzl).

Third umpire: Rudi Koertzen (RSA); Match referee: Chris Broad (Eng).

Hours of play (IST): 7 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. and 11.15 p.m. till close.

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