THE scenario for West Indies is simple, defeat Bangladesh and remain in contention for a spot in the semi-finals or lose and practically end their hopes of a title defence.

The winless West Indies are bottom of the Group One table with a -2.550 net run rate while Bangladesh, who are also winless have a net run rate of -1.655.

It means both sides have to win their remaining three matches and hope other results go their way in order to be among the top two teams from the group.

The two sides have only met twice at World T20 events, at the inaugural event in 2009 where the Asian side won by six wickets, and then in 2014, where West Indies won a lopsided contest.

“I definitely think it is a good opportunity for us to bounce back, we are not sure how Sharjah is going to play tomorrow but our focus is not on the small boundaries, to be honest,” West Indies Twenty20 vice-captain, Nicholas Pooran, stated on the eve of the match.

“We just want to execute our skills and once we can do that, the results will take care of themselves. We can’t really say it will be short boundaries and we are going to hit sixes; we want to be aggressive as a team.”

Sharjah is the smallest in terms of boundary size of the three venues, but in recent times, the pitch has not been that conducive to high scores, albeit, Afghanistan scored 190-4 against Scotland.

Furthermore, Pooran has admitted the team’s batting has lacked intent and it has been the main cause for their horrendous start to their World T20 title defence in the United Arab Emirates.

In two innings to date, West Indies have scored 198 runs in 34.2 overs but 19.1 of those overs have been scoreless.
“Every single team bats dot balls but it is the way we are batting that bothers me. We are showing no intent (and) that hurt us for the last two games. We spoke about it; we have practice in it a bit and guys are going to have a discussion about it again,” Pooran contended.

He added, “To be honest, we don’t mind batting dot balls, it is just the intent, we know can make back up but in the first two games, we didn’t show much intent and we are much better than that as a team.

It will be West Indies’ first match of the tournament at this venue, moving from Dubai while Bangladesh return after playing their first.
After Bangladesh, West Indies face Sri Lanka on November 4 then their final group match on November 9 against Australia.
Match time is 06:00hrs

West Indies squad: Kieron Pollard (c), Nicholas Pooran (v-c), Dwayne Bravo, Roston Chase, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Evin Lewis, Lendl Simmons, Ravi Rampaul, Andre Russell, Oshane Thomas, Hayden Walsh Jr, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein

Bangladesh squad: Mahmudullah (c), Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Soumya Sarkar, Liton Kumar Das, Afif Hossain, Mohammad Naim, Nurul Hasan Sohan, Shamim Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Rubel Hossain, Shoriful Islam, Mahedi Hasan, Nasum Ahmed.