Bangladesh are riding high on confidence after two consecutive wins.
Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons has fired a sharp warning ahead of his team’s Super Four clash against India in the Asia Cup 2025. As many as three sides have come against the Men in Blue but failed to get past them, even when India had middling days on the field.
However, Simmons feels that any team can beat India because what matters is how they play on a given day, not what happened in the past. Former West Indies player sounded hopeful of finding chinks and defeating the only unbeaten side in the competition.
“Every team has the ability to beat India. The game is played on the day. It’s not what India has done before. It’s what happens on Wednesday. It’s what happens during that three-and-a-half-hour period. We will try to play as best as we can and hope to find chinks in India’s armoury. That’s the way we win games.”
The confidence in Simmons’ words comes after Bangladesh’s terrific fightback in the competition from a stage where they looked down and out when Sri Lanka defeated them in the group stage. From there, the Litton Das-led side beat Afghanistan, gained a boost when Sri Lanka also defeated them, and then overcame Sri Lanka themselves in the Super Four phase to go in the best possible way against the finest team.
The skill gap between India and Bangladesh is wide, but since the fixture will be played in Dubai, the gap will narrow a bit due to the nature of the surface. That means Bangladesh stand a chance, even if they have a flawed team with a few loopholes for the opponents to exploit.
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They have two quality spinners – Mahedi Hasan and Nasum Ahmed – who will get ample assistance from the surface, as other slow bowlers throughout the tournament. Their ball will grip into the pitch and stop before the batters, which can induce false shots and result in dismissals because the boundaries are fairly long, at least on one side.
Then, Bangladesh have Mustafizur Rahman, whose value will be massive in this game, and his recent form has been encouraging for the team. Fresh from three wickets against Sri Lanka in the previous encounter, the left-arm pacer can agitate Indian batters with his range of variations, which will hold into the surface to make shot-making difficult, and he has played against these players before in IPL and international cricket.
There are reports about Litton’s uncertainty regarding availability for this high-octane clash, but his presence will surely bolster the batting lineup, which is slowly shaping up nicely. Ultimately, Bangladesh’s hopes hinge on containing the Indian batting unit, which has shown the ability to score freely even on sluggish surfaces; they have a real shot at scaling their toughest challenge yet if they manage to do so.
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