NOTTINGHAM: Bangladesh do not have to knock off defending champions Australia on Thursday at Trent Bridge to reach the World Cup semi-finals, but it would be a massive step in that direction if they did.

To break up the leading four of England, Australia, New Zealand and India, Bangladesh ought to beat at least one of them.

Chances were missed against New Zealand and England, the only two losses in five group games for Bangladesh so far.

Bangladesh have only one win against Australia in 20 One-day Internationals, in 2005 in Cardiff. Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza is the only survivor from either side. He trapped Australia opener Adam Gilchrist for a duck.

Australia reacted to the shock defeat a week later by crushing Bangladesh by 10 wickets with 31 overs to spare. The Australians haven’t lost to Bangladesh again, and never in the World Cup, and the odds are strong the streak will continue on Thursday.

But this isn’t the once-in-a-blue-moon Bangladesh of old. The players are breathing rarefied air at this World Cup. They posted their highest ODI score of 330 in their World Cup opener, and South Africa was flattered to get within 21 runs of them. They went on to achieve their highest run chase, reaching 322 to demoralize the West Indies by seven wickets with eight overs left.

Mashrafe, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal and Mahmudullah Bangladesh’s top five ODI appearance-makers with nearly a combined 1,000 have been the backbone of the team’s rise to respectability. They are playing their last World Cup together and enjoying rolling the dice.

With able support from Mohammad Saifuddin (nine wickets), Mustafizur Rahman (seven wickets), and off the bench Liton Das (a 94 not out), Bangladesh have growing belief that it has the depth and the fight to go far.

But Australia is also in high spirits, bolstered by the return to fitness of Nathan Coulter-Nile and, especially, all-rounder Marcus Stoinis. He strained his left side while bowling against India 10 days ago and missed the wins against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Mitch Marsh was summoned on standby as a like-for-like replacement for Stoinis, but he was sent back on Tuesday to join Australia ‘A’ side on tour in the United Kingdom.

Marsh became surplus after Stoinis bowled for an hour on Tuesday to prove he’s recovered. Australia welcomed the sight, because the absence of the team’s sole all-rounder unbalanced the side and made them leave out specialist spinners Adam Zampa and Nathan Lyon. Part-time spinners Glenn Maxwell and captain Aaron Finch were employed, and Australia got away with it against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

“We need to be a flexible squad to win a World Cup,” assistant coach Brad Haddin said. “We make sure each and every player is ready for game day. One of the luxuries at the moment is we’re still winning, and we still haven’t found the perfect rhythm for our game, which is a dangerous sign.”

Australia have no special plans to dismiss the in-form Shakib Al Hasan, wicket-keeper Alex Carey said on Wednesday.

“Bangladesh are playing really good cricket at the moment and it’s led by Shakib. So we’ve put our time into Shakib and all the players at the top of the order as well as their bowling,” Carey told reporters. “I think he [Shakib] is probably in the best form [of his career] with the white ball. So we sort of know the areas and line and length we want to bowl to him and out there we’ll assess the conditions... no extra planning.

”...We’d love to get him out early... he’s in great form... Liton Das played an incredible innings. We’ve gone through the batting list and hopefully plans go accordingly.”

Australia defeated Sri Lanka by 87 runs in their last match to make it four wins from five games but Carey said they were still not firing on all cylinders.

“We’re playing really good cricket... the top of the order, batting-wise, have done a lot of the work and making a lot of the runs which is great,” he added. “But there are little areas we can do better at. Obviously Sri Lanka came out and played really well in the first 10 overs. So we’d like to take wickets up front. There have been times where we would like to finish the innings off with a bat.

“Although we’re getting the results, we’re striving hard to try to find that perfect game and put a full 50 or 100 overs together. We’re aware of the areas to keep improving.”

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2019