Clippings: A peek at Bangladesh

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, March 8
Bangladesh underlinedtheir intentions of springing few surprises at the World Cup after they finishedtheir warm-up games undefeated with a comprehensive seven-wicket win overScotland on Thursday.Following on from their stunning two-wicket upset of NewZealand on Tuesday, Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar led from the front with anunbeaten 57 to overhaul Scotland's 152-9 total with more than 15 overs to spare.
"We're improving all the time and I just feel it's becoming more of a realitythat the Bangladesh team might cause one or two upsets," coach Dav Whatmore toldreporters. "We're ranked ninth ... and most judges around the world would expectthe opposition to beat Bangladesh every time there is fixture. So it's also fairto say we could cause an upset or two."
Bangladesh, who take onsub-continent rivals India and Sri Lanka as well as Bermuda in Group B clasheswhen the World Cup begins in earnest next week, enjoyed their rare status asfavourites in a match against the amateur Scottish outfit.Batting first, theScots made a promising start to reach 73-2 but the dismissal of Ryan Watson inthe 23rd over sparked their collapse as Bangladesh unleashed the spinningexpertise of Abdur Razzak and Mohammad Rafique on their opponents.
With the duocombining to take five wickets, Whatmore believes the spinning wickets in theCaribbean and the results over the past week will hold his team in good stead."This was a game we were supposed to win which is a bit of a reverse of everyother team we play who are ranked above us," said Whatmore. "So it was importantthat we didn't take it lightly."We've got to play India and Sri Lanka andgetting confidence in competition like this is important for us. "It will go along way in that all the boys in the group will be a lot more buoyant andattacking in those games."After failing miserably in their two outings in the3Ws Oval so far Scotland captain Craig Wright did not want to dwell too much onthe daunting task ahead. They face champions Australia, top-ranked South Africaand Netherlands in Group A.
"We haven't done ourselves any justice yet. We'vecarried a lack of form in the warm-up games and hopefully we can improve onthat," said Wright, who combines his playing career with being CricketScotland's marketing manager."There is no point in us getting too preoccupiedwith who we are playing against because if we do that we've lost the gamestraight away. "We've got to focus on doing our own jobs well and doing betterthan we've done in the two matches (against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) andhopefully put on a decent show."