Bangladesh vs India Prediction: One of the Tigers’ Big 3 can get to 50

It’s Bangladesh against India in the second match of the Champions Trophy on Thursday, start time of 09:00 with live coverage on Sky Sports Cricket.  

Jamie Pacheco thinks this should be plain sailing for India but that in a game of limited betting opportunities, one of Bangladesh’s three best batsmen should at least be able to get to 50. You can check out why he thinks as such in his preview below with that all important Bangladesh vs India Prediction...

*You can check out all of our Cricket Odds over at betfred.com

Bangladesh  

Bangladesh can consider themselves pretty fortunate to be here in the first place. They’re currently ninth in the ICC ODI rankings, with Sri Lanka in fifth, so they were a bit lucky with the timings regarding qualification or else it could easily have been Hasaranga de Silva and co at this tournament rather than them. No-one at the tournament has a lower win rate in ODIs over the past two years than the Tigers.  

There’s no Shakib Al-Hasan anymore of course but what they lose in terms of a world-class all-rounder who has been their best player for the last 15 years, they gain in improved team spirit and a more likely absence of controversy; yeah, Shakib wasn’t great to have around in that regard.  

Najmul Hossain Shanto, a capable top-order ODI batsman leads, Mehidy Hasan Miraz is the closest they have to Shakib in terms of role and outright talent, the enigmatic Soumya Sarkar can still be dangerous on his day with the bat, while left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman will carry on doing his thing.  

Taskin Ahmed boasts strong ODI stats.  

Golden oldies Mahmudullah (38) and Mushfiqur Rahim (37) add much-needed experience, but it would be a considerable surprise if they won any of their three games. 

Possible XI:  Tanzid Hasan, Sarkar, Shanto, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Hridoy, Rahim, Mahmudullah, Rishad Hossain, Taskin, Nasum, Rahman.   

India  

Yes, they’re the justified favourites, yes, they’re the best team on paper based on win rate in the last two years, and yes, they have the best team in the tournament in terms of playing resources.  

You would have thought that with all that going for them, they wouldn’t have needed to refuse to travel to Pakistan and pretty much be given complete free licence to decide where they got to play all their games (Dubai). Yes, including the final, if/when they make it that far.  

Right, now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about India the ODI side, rather than India the cricketing superpower who increasingly seems to hold all the trump cards away from the field of play.  

Their top-order contains some of the finest batsmen in the world in this format while in Ravindra Jadeja, Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel they have three all-rounders who offer fantastic balance and also allow for flexibility in the batting line-up.  

What they don’t have is…Jasprit Bumrah, who is injured. On the one hand, no-one can replicate what he does, particularly in the pressure moments, on the other hand India have coped surprisingly well when they’ve been without him. 

KL Rahul may be preferred to Rishabh Pant for the keeper position while it should be a straight choice between Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy for the third spinner spot.  

Possible XI: Rohit, Gill, Kohli, Iyer, Axar, Rahul/Pant, Pandya, Jadeja, Arshdeep, Shami, Kuldeep/Chakravarthy.   

Pitch and conditions   

Dubai is one of the more interesting grounds of world cricket for ODIs. Both seamers and spinners will always feel there’s something there in the wicket for them to exploit while batsmen will feel that if they play themselves in, they can capitalise in the death overs.  

But don’t expect plenty of big scores the way you would on the pitches over in Pakistan. 260-270 or so batting first and you’ve got a very competitive score on the board.  

Another interesting aspect of Dubai is that there’s often dew in the second innings but strangely, it doesn’t seem to make that much of a difference in ODIs in terms of the actual win/loss stats. In other words, dew or otherwise, chasing isn’t necessarily an advantage here.   

If India were to bat first, you’d still expect them to clear 300 but then again, if it‘s Bangladesh batting first, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if they failed to get to 240.  

Bangladesh vs India Odds

India are 1/12 (implied probability 92%) with Bangladesh 6/1 (14%).  

If those odds look wrong to you and that the Tigers appear to be a big price, consider how they’d actually go about winning the game.  

Sure, if they put 300 on the board, they’d have a big chance but even then, may have to negotiate second-innings dew against India’s star-studded batting line-up. And if the shoe is on the other foot, they’re probably looking at chasing 300, so someone will probably have to go out and score 100. But who?   

Odds-wise or even sporting-wise, it would be a monumental shock if Bangladesh were to win this, and they just don’t seem to have the tools to do so.  

Your best bet may be to wait for a bright start from Shanto’s men and see if you can get around 1.4 or 1.5 on India in live betting, but it could be a long wait.  

India Top Batsman  

I’m not about to suggest a tip on an Indian batsman to top score but instead, I’m about to explain why this is an almost impossible market to play.  

Kohli, Sharma, Iyer and Gill are all around the 13/5 to 4/1 mark and the winner is very likely to come from one of those, but your guess is as good as mine as regards which one.  

Given they’re all of similar ability, it wouldn’t be the worst strategy to go with the one who’s the biggest price (Iyer, 4/1) but the problem with that is he might only arrive at the crease when one (or two) of the others is already on 100. And sure, the likes of Pandya (12/1) and Axar (8/1, remember he may bat as high as five) look to be available at big prices but then again, they may not get a bat at all if the top order goes big. So, you can see the problem.  

PickyourPunt  

At Least One of Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Najmul Hossain Shanto or SS Sarkar To Score 50+ Runs in Their Innings 

Betfred have some interesting PickyourPunt selections ahead of this one, and all the other games for that matter, and the one I like is: that one of Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Najmul Shanto or S Sarkar gets to 50 at 19/20. Mushfiqur Rahim aside, those are all of Bangladesh’s best batsmen right there, so if they’re going to make a fist of this game, at least one of them is going to have to get to 50.   

There are two positives about this wager aside from the fact that those are quality players.  

The first is that a steady approach rather than a gung-ho one is probably how they’ll approach the game, so I think we’re more likely to see one of them get 50 off 80 than 30 off 15, which obviously plays into our hands.   

The second is there’s no Bumrah to deliver a magic ball out of nowhere to spoil the party. Sure, they’re going to have to work hard for their runs and it won’t be easy, but the absence of that Bumrah X-Factor could make a big difference.  

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...