CRICKET – BAHRAIN will take on Tanzania tomorrow at the Selangor Turf Club in Kuala Lumpur in their third and final Group B game of the 2024 International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup Challenge League Play-off.
The kingdom’s team lead the four-team table with four points after notching up successive wins in their first two 50-over games against Vanuatu and hosts Malaysia.
And head coach Bhaskar Pillai is confident that his men will make it a hat-trick of group stage wins against the African side.
“The boys have built up a nice rhythm,” he told the GDN by phone from Kuala Lumpur.
“The batters have done extremely well and the bowlers have been wonderfully effective in both our victories. So I would expect them to build on the confidence they have gained and ensure that we win our third game in a row.”
Bahrain have already qualified for the Super Sixes stage after thrashing Vanuatu by 109 runs in their tournament opener and pipping Malaysia by 18 runs in their second game.
But Pillai is keen that his team should go into the six-team stage, which will feature the top three teams from both groups in a round-robin format, with a 100 per cent win record.
“Winning is a habit,” he explained.
“The boys can’t afford to take it easy in this last game. They have to go out there to beat Tanzania.”
The Bahrain team, consisting of weekend amateurs with South Asian roots and day jobs, have indeed done outstandingly well, considering they don’t even have a proper cricket ground or facilities at home.
Top-order batter Haider Ali has scored back-to-back half-centuries, including a hard-hitting 98 in the first game and a battling 53 in the second while teammate Ahmer bin Nasir scored a swashbuckling, unbeaten 87 off 85 balls to lead his side to victory over Malaysia.
Rizwan Butt in his bowling stride
In the same game, medium-pacer Rizwan Butt picked up four wickets for 37 runs to bowl Bahrain to a most impressive win. He was backed up by fellow medium-pacer Ali Dawood, who took two for 28, and left-arm spinner Abdul Majid Abbasi, who stifled the Malaysian batting as he returned economical figures of one for 20 off his ten overs.
Pillai added that he didn’t know much about the Tanzanian team, other than what he saw in their opening game against Vanuatu, which Tanzania won by 77 runs last Friday.
“They look like a good team,” he said.
“They have solid batsmen and a decent bowling attack. So we won’t take them lightly.”
One thing that does concern Pillai, though, are the oppressive, humid weather conditions.
“The humidity took a toll on six of our players in the game against Malaysia,” the Bahrain coach said. “They had to be helped off the field because of dehydration. The fact that we played back-to-back games on consecutive days didn’t help. They’re okay now and we’re hoping that it’ll be less humid tomorrow.”
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