Teams aim to get it right

Match facts

Oct 20, 2008
Start time 7.30pm (1400 GMT)

Big Picture

When 14 Bangladesh players joined the ICL, many voiced concerns over the fortunes of the national side. But while Bangladesh are providing stiff competition to New Zealand, a refreshing change from their feeble performances in the recent past, the Dhaka Warriors are yet to win in the ICL's second season.

To be fair to Dhaka, they have come up against two of the better teams in the league, Chennai Superstars and Hyderabad Heroes, both of whom won tournaments in the first season. In a clash of the capital cities of Bangladesh and India, they face the Delhi Giants, who will aim to recover from the loss to the Royal Bengal Tigers.

It's the first match for both teams in Ahmedabad, where the conditions have offered a bit of assistance to the quicker bowlers. With Shane Bond in the opposition, Dhaka need to be wary early on in their innings. Alok Kapali scored the first century in the ICL against Hyderabad, but the batsmen need to fire in unison. Kapali scored 100 off 60 balls, but despite that Dhaka's score was only 168; had it been 15-20 more, Hyderabad would have struggled to chase it down.

Watch out for

Left-arm spin: Both teams have two left-arm spinners in their ranks, and they will be buoyed by the performance of Ahmedabad Rockets' trio of slow left-armers against Lahore Badshahs on Sunday. In ten overs, Sumit Kalia, Sridharan Sriram and Parvez Aziz took six wickets for 49 runs.

Mohammad Rafique has been the best bowler for Dhaka, closely followed by Mosharraf Hossain, another left-arm spinner. Mosharraf was the highest wicket-taker in Bangladesh's National Cricket League - the premier first-class tournament - in 2007-08. For Delhi, Ali Murtaza has been their strike bowler, with 21 wickets in 16 games and an outstanding economy-rate of 5.39. Abhinav Bali, though, has been far from impressive, and may not feature in Monday's clash.

Aftab Ahmed has sparkled with the bat so far in the tournament, albeit not for the duration his team would desire. Dhaka would expect more than quickfire scores of 24 and 30, but even if Aftab does score only that much, expect a shot to savour - against Chennai, he paddle-swept fast bowler Nantie Hayward for a six.

Paul Nixon loves to get under the skin of opposition batsmen (read more on that here) but if he gets going, Dhaka's spinners won't be happy either. Nixon powered Delhi to victory with a 24-ball 43 against Ahmedabad, and his ability to clear the boundary and effectively play the reverse-sweep will make him a tough customer for the spinners to handle.

Quotes

"We need to be more disciplined with our work. We need to start playing for each other as we don't have too many big-name players. There is a lot of talent in the youngsters but we need to play as a unit."
Delhi captain Marvan Atapattu on what went wrong against Bengal.

"The team can't be loaded with 11 big-hitters. We have to gel as a team and each one should contribute towards a win. We can't afford to have players who will get 10 runs in two balls and then get out."
I too have a role to play, Atapattu, not your average big-hitter, says in his defence