Here is a great ariticle on today's match.




India’s World Cup campaign begins, with a bang by Bangla

Ajay S Shankar

Posted online: Sunday, March 18, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST

Port of Spain (Trinidad), MARCH 17
By the time you read this, the final line of India’s opening chapter in this World Cup, the Bangladesh adventure, would have been written and probably rewritten. But the real story was over long ago. In the first 90 minutes. By then, Ban-gladesh had grabbed India by the collar, poked a finger in the eyes of some of the world’s best batsman, torn up the elaborate blueprint prepared by Greg Chappell, and punched an embarrassing dent on the face of the world’s richest cricketing outfit.

Coming from nowhere, with just four players who have ever played in a World Cup before, the modest Habibul Bashar’s boys had also managed to shake the world awake. With some help from rival skipper Rahul Dravid, who surprisingly let them bowl first on a lively wicket that settled down nicely by noon.

Yes, Yuvraj Singh did bring some smiles on the faces of a few hundred Indian fans with a bunch of rousing fours, one soaring six; there was Sourav Ganguly holding fort at other end, one Bengal tiger against eleven Bangladeshi ones; there was Zaheer Khan lighting up the final minutes with some fireworks.

But that was after India were left tottering around like a Rasta on ganja, at 72 for four. Virender Sehwag packed off, Robin Uthappa caught out, Sachin Tendulkar embarrassed, and Rahul Dravid left bewildered, shaking his head all the way back to the dressing room.

And to rub it in cruelly, out came this cocky 17-year-old left-handed Bangladeshi opener, Tamim Iqbal, the prodigiously talented nephew of former

Bangladeshi captain, Akram Khan. Swinging his bat like a machete, pulling off some stupendous shots on-the-up, Iqbal smashed Zaheer Khan for two straight fours in one over, then two more and a six in another and topped it off with a slashed six off Munaf Patel. 51 runs in 53 balls, and

India was on its knees.

Coach Dav Whatmore had said last night that his boys would do it for their 22-year-old mate Manjural Islam, part of the World Cup probables, who had died in a bike accident two days ago. Their manager Asif Khan had said that they would do it for the hundreds of fans who had kept the faith — some from the US had propped up this poster before the game began: ‘Don’t mess with the tigers’. And, skipper Bashar had simply said that they would do it.

Well, they did it: embarrass the Indians, show the world that they belong. Check this out: 6/1, 21/2, 40/3, 72/4, then that 85-run Yuivraj-Ganguly tie-up, the final collapse, the last five wickets gone in 34 runs, including that 32-run last-wicket burst.

One name stood out in clear light blue though - the bright, red cherry that stayed stuck even though the cream had been whipped off. As this other Bangladeshi poster admitted: ‘We love you, dada. But not today.’ Really, what would India have done if the Bengal tiger had not clawed his way back into the team? Today, he stood firm, planting that left foot right across, fending away every inspired dash from the fiery Mashrafe Mortaza, the accurate tracer-like swingers from the left-handed Syed Rasel, the squeezing spin of the veteran Mohammed Rafique and his younger fellow-tweakers Abdur Razzak and Shakib Al Hasan.

‘Dada’ did get to free his hands a bit, too, in the end, crossing his 50 with a quiet single, before he gave it up in the 44th over. But then, the wheels had begun to come off at the other end, long ago. Sehwag was beaten by pace and a hint of swing from the spearhead Mortaza in the third over, the uprooted middle stump probably mirroring the state of his mind these days. Uthappa was caught at point off the outside edge, again done in by sheer pace, around the 144 kmph mark. No wonder, the Bangladeshis decided to pitchfork the tall Mortaza straight into the national team from a speedsters’ competition in southwestern Jessore.

Then, there was that bizarre Tendulkar dismissal, the ball taking the inside edge of his bat, hitting the front pad and going back to the keeper’s gloves via the inside thigh guard. Bangladesh’s spinners were turning it on now.

And Dravid? LBW, umpire Aleem Dar ignoring that shake of the head, the wave of that bat. Chappell’s ‘impact’ players had flopped, simply handed over the baton to their bowlers. Hoo haa India?