Cricket World Cup debut: Bengali Tigers beat South Africa

The international competition in England and Wales until July 14th. The "The Oval" stadium celebrates for its favorites. Leading the team, captain Shakib Al Hasan and former captain Mushfiqur Rahim, "star" of the day.


Dhaka (AsiaNews) - The Bangladeshi Tigers had a sparkling debut at the cricket World Cup in Great Britain. In front of a delirious stadium, the Bangladesh team yesterday beat the adversaries of South Africa by 21 "runs" the second consecutive defeat.

Today even the premier Sheikh Hasina congratulated them on the amazing victory. In a message she urged the players to "maintain confidence and continue with a string of victories".

The sporting competition is taking place in England and Wales from May 30th to July 14th. In addition to the host country's team, nine others are participating: Australia, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Afghanistan and the West Indies (the Caribbean islands of the British Commonwealth).

The match took place at "The Oval", the sports facility located in the London suburb of Kennington. The Bengali Tigers scored a total of 330, the highest ever achieved in the competitions called "One-day International", that is, with a limited score taking place in a single day. The "stars" of the match were captain Shakib Al Hasan and former captain Mushfiqur Rahim: the first dragged the match with 75 points, the second with 78 others.

For its part, South Africa obtained a score of 309. The country has rarely managed to qualify for international matches. In the field the players appeared inattentive, and sloppy in the game tactics.

Yesterday's game is an important step to revive the morale of the Tigers, who miraculously survived the attack on Christchurch mosques in New Zealand on March 15th. By pure coincidence, their bus arrived at the site of one of the two mosques just five minutes after the massacre by white supremacist Brenton Harrison Tarrant, which killed 50 people in total.

(Photo credit 1 and 2: Instagram profile of Bangladesh Tigers)