England in jeopardy after Bangladesh loss

New Delhi: Bangladesh roared back into the World Cup on Thursday with a thrilling two-wicket victory over England, throwing Group B – the group of death – wide open to a number of permutations, with the most likely being a first-round exit for England.The English team, which has played all but one of their group matches, now stares at a must-win situation against the West Indies who have six points with one more match in hand against India.
In case of Bangladesh, though they have one point less (4) than England, their chances for a quarterfinal spot look brighter with two matches in hand against the Netherlands and South Africa. This means that Bangladesh can go past England on points if they manage to beat the Dutch and England lose to the Windies.That in all probablity will bring the curtains down on England’s World Cup dream, with India, Bangladesh and West Indies ahead of them on points.The fourth spot is certain to fall into South Africa’s kitty who have just finished half of their league engagements and despite losing to England have four points against their name and matches against India, Ireland and Bangladesh coming up. Out of the three, the Proteas look good to win against Ireland and Bangladesh, which means a quarterfinal beckons the team from the rainbow nation.So it would be fair to say that the reigning T20 Champions’ World Cup campaign is in serious jeopardy and their losses to Ireland earlier and Bangladesh on Friday have put things beyond their control.Besides a win at any cost against the West Indies, Andrew Strauss would want the rub of the green to favour them with the remaining results in Group B turning out in their favour.