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Now or never for Bangladesh

MIRPUR: Bangladesh hopes to come out with all guns blazing when it clashes with powerful South Africa in a must-win game on Saturday to enter the World Cup quarterfinals.

England's dramatic win over the West Indies in Chennai on Thursday ruined Bangladesh's hopes of easing into the knockout rounds without having to contend with South Africa's firepower.

South Africa is the only team in Group B to have qualified for the quarterfinals, with four others — India, West Indies, Bangladesh and England — vying for the remaining three berths over the weekend.

Bangladesh is tied with the West Indies on six points, India and England are on seven each and group leader South Africa is on eight.

If Bangladesh loses to South Africa, its poor net run-rate of -0.765 will almost certainly lead to its exit, unless India defeats the West Indies by a huge margin in Chennai on Sunday.

Bangladesh's Australian coach Jamie Siddons admitted the task ahead was difficult — but not impossible.

“Beating South Africa is not going to be easy,” he said. “They are playing really good cricket and they are a great team. But we have the advantage of playing at home. We need to play well and put ourselves in with a chance.”

Siddons warned South Africa not to underestimate his young team and was banking on two key players, Tamim Iqbal and skipper Shakib Al Hasan, to come good.

“It's not just about one or two players, but those two are very important to our success when competing against big teams. If those two do well, we can put a really good total on the board and put South Africa under a lot of pressure,” he said.

South Africa will look to Saturday's match to fine-tune its preparations for the business end of the tournament.

Skipper Graeme Smith said earlier he wanted his teammates to click together in all departments which he feels they have not managed in previous matches.

The teams (from):

Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (capt.), Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Junaid Siddique, Shahriar Nafees, Raqibul Hasan, Mohammad Ashraful, Mushfiqur Rahim, Naeem Islam, Mohammad Mahmudullah, Abdur Razzak, Rubel Hossain, Shafiul Islam, Nazmul Hossain, Suhrawadi Shuvo.

South Africa: Graeme Smith (capt.), Hashim Amla, Johan Botha, A.B. de Villiers, J.P. Duminy, Francois du Plessis, Colin Ingram, Jacques Kallis, Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell, Robin Peterson, Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Morne van Wyk.

Umpires: Aleem Dar and Daryl Harper. Third umpire: Rod Tucker. Match referee: Jeff Crowe.

Match starts at 9 a.m. — Agencies

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