India will play Bangladesh in the first Test match of the two test series
at Dhaka. India has never lost to Bangladesh in a test match, and will
look to maintain their record whereas Bangladesh will look to continue their winning
streak after having demolished the West Indian side last year.
The Indians will be going in to the series with a strong looking side. In fact,
it is a surprise that there are 15 players named in the squad, but the side
will probably be looking at making some changes around if they deem it necessary.
Click for Live Score Card of India vs BangladeshHowever, it follows that the openers in Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir
will retain their slots at the top of the order. Gambhir had missed out on the
previous Test that India had played because of his sister's marriage, and had
been replaced by Murali Vijay. Sehwag had incidentally smashed a 292 in that
game, and the pair will look to consolidate on their excellent partnership at
the top.
Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman will all make it to the
side as well, along with Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni forming
an excellent batting line-up. It will be interesting to see who the bowlers
will be for India, but if the sub-continent conditions are to be believed, it
is hard to see India go into the game with more than two pace bowlers.
Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth will be the two pace bowlers, whereas Harbhajan Singh
and Amit Mishra should take care of the spin department. This will be
an important series for Mishra, as he will look to make an impression in the
very first game with a spinner like Pragyan Ojha waiting in the ranks.
For the Bangladeshis, this is another chance to get a move on. They had a rather
difficult tri-series in which they lost all of their four games, and despite
knowing that they will be up against the strong Indian side, they will look
to make some inroads at least.
They will be led by Shakib al Hasan as Mashrafe Mortaza is still not
fit enough to be a part of the side, and will be propped by other spinners in
the playing eleven. However, it will be a test of their batting in the series,
as they have shown their penchant for scoring some big hits to begin with but
have not been able to convert their starts into anything meaningful.
It will be difficult to see the Bangladeshis upset the Indian applecart at
this current moment. However, the Indians will need to guard against complacency.
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