Bashar fears for Cup survival after Sri Lanka rout

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad: Bangladesh skipper Habibul Bashar fears Wednesday’s 198-run defeat by Sri Lanka could scupper his unfancied team’s hopes of qualifying for the Super Eights at the World Cup.Bangladesh boosted their chances of advancing into the second round for the first time after shocking 1983 champions India by five wickets in their opening Group B match. However, all the hard work seemed to come undone on Wednesday when Sri Lanka overwhelmed them following a sloppy all-round display.“I’m very sorry, it was a bad match for us,” said Bashar, who dropped two catches and misfielded. “It was a bad day. I hope we will never have a day like this again,” he expressed.Sri Lanka are in pole position to qualify for the Super Eights, but India, the other fancied team, need to beat the 1996 winners in their final game today to be in contention for one of the two berths.A defeat would knock them out and Bangladesh could qualify with Sri Lanka if they beat debutants Bermuda on Sunday. “We’ve to look at the India-Sri Lanka game now,” Bashar said. Even if India win, Bangladesh can force a three-way tie in which case two teams with superior run rate would go through.“We have a little advantage, we would know what we need to do,” Bashar said referring to the fact that they will play their final group game two days after India. “Even if we had lost by a close margin, we could have improved our net run rate which would have helped us in the last match,” he added.