The eyeballs though have been on the rise ever since Bangladesh beat Pakistan. The home team have done well to bounce back from that opening defeat to India, impressively beating the other three teams.
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India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni feels the current Indian team is a “balanced” side which can “take on any team anywhere in the world” atleast in the shortest format of the game after they notched up their ninth win out of 10 matches.
“We’re used to noise”. Let there be 100%. Who cares? When you play at that level, you are immune to that.
In the spin department, Shakib and Mahmudullah are also capable of using the wickets to their advantage.
UAE skipper Amjad Javed said they knew beforehand that it was always going to be very hard against favourites India. “We are looking to do that, not just become the Asian power or that sort of thing”. Why treat it as a final?
“Right from the start, we have approached every game as a knock-out game. We will approach this game in no different manner”.
Despite the support being so fervent for the home team, Shastri believes his side will be buoyed by the experience.
For Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Virat Kohli – playing a big final is not new. The match will be played at Mirpur as both the teams are all set to make the opportunity count.
Bangladesh have won 18 of 54 Twenty20s, but five of those wins have come in their past eight matches.
“I will have to sit here for 10 hours if I have to tell you all that”, he said.
Indian team director Ravi Shastri, however, was unperturbed. What is easy for them may not be that easy for us. You people read, we will go play cricket.
More wickets followed as the UAE failed to get a grip on the game.
“That was a good game”.
Hosts Bangladesh have never lifted the trophy in a tournament being staged for a 13th time since it started in 1984. But every game is a tough game. “We did an excellent job in that game”. These two sides met in the first game of the tournament, but the hosts would want to leave all memories behind.
To Mortaza it mattered little.
Dhoni’s numerous records: This was Dhoni’s 200th match as captain overseas, and he ended up hitting his 300th global six as well as his 1,300th worldwide four.
“Before walking out to the field, our captain MS Dhoni walked up to me and asked me not to think too much about the fact that I was making my debut”.
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“I don’t like to single out any player”. India has done very well in the whole tournament and they have all their players in form and are striking the ball very well and are full of confidence. After all, this is the India team accustomed to the big stage, reaching the previous ICC Twenty20 final and last year’s World Cup semifinal.
