Bangladesh coach Steve Rhodes says the pressure will be on Pakistan when the two sides meet in their final World Cup league game at Lord’s on Friday.
Pakistan are nottechnically out of the competition yet but would need a freakishly big winagainst already eliminated Bangladesh to overtake New Zealand on run rate.
If Bangladesh win thetoss and bat, Pakistan would be out before the game even starts.
“We’ve got the pressure of 170 million back homewanting us to win but Pakistan can still qualify and, maybe, the pressure isall on Pakistan going into this game,” Rhodes said on Thursday.
“Both teams are desperate to beat each other. Wecertainly are. They’ve got a lot to play for as well.”
Rhodes, whose team have won their past four one-dayinternationals against Pakistan, said a win in their final match would make ita good tournament for his side.
“If we beat Pakistan, I think we’ve had a very goodWorld Cup, even though we’ve not qualified,” said the former England Testplayer.
“And I say that because the other teams, some of thebig teams that we’ve played against, we’ve had close-ish games against them.
“We pushed Australia. We pushed India. Generally, thegames we’ve played, we’ve been in the contest, and we’ve showed a lot of fight.We carry on doing that, then we’re going to improve and improve.
“We would have loved to have qualified for the latterstages, that’s a disappointment. But the victories have been very good.Certainly, the early victory with South Africa, and West Indies.”
Bangladesh scored 322 to beat the West Indies by sevenwickets — the highest successful chase of the tournament.
Rhodes played down the hype around the last World Cup matchfor skipper MashrafeMortaza.
“The one thing about Mashrafe with the players is thatthey respect him incredibly,” said Rhodes of Mashrafe, who has announcedthis will be his last World Cup.”Hopefully, the boys will give him theright sort of respect playing his last game in the World Cup but then mostimportantly we’ll concentrate on the match.”