Pakistan vs Bangladesh Prediction: 11/2 PickYourPunt for Rawalpindi clash

This - being the meeting between Pakistan and Bangladesh in Rawalpindi on Thursday (09:00, live on Sky Sports Cricket) - is unfortunately a dead-rubber, but that doesn't mean there's no good betting opportunities.

Read on for our cricket expert Jamie Pacheco's Pakistan vs Bangladesh predictions, complete with the latest odds and team news.

Pakistan vs Bangladesh Odds

Pakistan are 2/7 (implied probability 77.8%), which looks about right.

There’s no doubt they have the better players, the better head-to-head record and home advantage, so it’s not so easy to make a case for the outsiders at 5/2. The one thing the Tigers perhaps have going for them is a belief they can beat Pakistan; something that couldn’t be said ahead of their encounter against India.

Their best chance would be to bat first, target around 280 and hope Pakistan feel the pressure in the chase. But we’d need a lot to go our way for us to be in with a chance of an upset, so it’s a market best left alone.

Team News

Pakistan

It’s never nice when the ‘host’ nation crashes out so early in a tournament because it leads to a certain feeling of deflation about the whole thing.

We say ‘host’ rather than just host because their second match, and second defeat, against India, wasn’t in Pakistan at all but rather in Dubai. In truth, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference because India look a far superior outfit and would probably have won wherever this was played; but it certainly didn’t help Pakistan’s cause.

The problem with the Champions Trophy as opposed to say a World Cup is that there’s very little margin for error. Australia have won World Cups after losing their first two matches but lose two matches in a row in this one and you’re already out of it.

Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf were three of the big names who were expected to shine but none of them did really.

It will be interesting to see if they stick with the same XI or give the likes of Usman Khan a game.

Possible XI: Imam, Babar, Shakeel, Rizwan, Agha, Tahir, Shah, Afridi, Shah, Rauf, Ahmed

Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s case is a very different one. They were the rank outsiders, they’d recently lost their best-ever player in Shakib Al-Hasan to retirement and had a relatively new man in charge in Najmul Hossain Shanto. So, it was not that much of a surprise that they lost their first two games against strong opposition.

Against New Zealand they did two things well: recover from a truly precarious position with the bat to at least post something (236) and take early wickets to give themselves a chance of defending that, which, in the end, of course they didn’t.

But they also did plenty wrong and the simple reason for that is that they just don’t have great players, or at least not compared to other sides here.

Credit to Shanto, Jaker Ali and Taskin Ahmed who all played their part in that defeat against New Zealand, but they needed a lot more from the others, and just didn’t get it.

Jaker Ali limped off when New Zealand were batting and didn’t return so they may have to do without him here.

Possible XI: Tanzid Hasan, Shanto, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Hridoy, Rahim, Mahmudullah, Ali/Sarkar, Rishad Hossain, Taskin, Mustafizur, Rana

Pitch and Conditions

We’re at Rawalpindi for this one. Unfortunately, the Australia v South Africa match was rained off without even having a toss, so that wasn’t helpful.

But this was also the venue for Bangladesh’s defeat against New Zealand where it looked a good batting track. That Bangladesh stumbled to just 236

was down to poor batting, good New Zealand bowling and even better fielding. Had New Zealand batted first and you would have thought they would have got very close to 300. Probably more.

If Pakistan bat first, that 300 mark should be within their reach.

1pt Babar Azam to score 50+ runs @ 15/8

Babar hasn’t disgraced himself at this tournament but if you include the Tri-Series before that, it’s now just one fifty in five matches, that one coming in their first Champions Trophy match against the Kiwis, when he scored 64.

But this is a man who recently celebrated becoming the fastest-ever batsman to reach 6000 runs in ODIs, which is some achievement.

He averages 55 in the format, has 35 fifties to his name from 128 ODIs (plus 19 centuries), knows this wicket very well and is up against the weakest bowling attack in the tournament. The fact the pressure is off here (now that they’re already out) is an advantage and at a boosted 15/8 (from 13/8), that’s a perfectly good price.

1pt Abrar Ahmed and Rishad Hossain both to take 2+ wickets each @ 11/2

The other bet that interests me here is to be found under the 11/2 to 16/1 PickYourPunt selections and it’s that Abrar Ahmed and Rishab Hossain each take two wickets (or more) at the tempting price of 11/2.

Ahmed has figures of 1/47 and 1/28 so far in this tournament and though those figures are decent in their own right, he’s actually bowled better than that. He was also up against far superior batsmen than what he’ll be facing here, with all due respect to Bangladesh’s willow men.

Rishad Hossain has actually been a little better this tournament, with 2/38 and 1/58 so far. Those two wickets were against India, by the way.

One thing we’ve certainly got in our favour is that both are almost certain to bowl their full 10 overs, so we’ll get a fair crack of the whip. I’d be very surprised if at least one of them doesn’t get to two wickets, but let’s hope it’s both.

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...