"Bangladesh's got a good bowling attack, that's what I like about them. But big concern is about the batters," Pakistan's head curator Tony Hemming said this yesterday when asked about Bangladesh's chances in today's match against New Zealand.       

Tony worked as a curator educator for the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) from July 2023 to July 2024 and due to his association with the Tigers, he knows about their strengths and weaknesses very well.

Bangladesh's rise in the pace-bowling department in recent years is nothing unknown but at the same time, their performance as a batting unit in bilateral and global events has been on a downward curve and has let the entire unit down many a times.

The Tigers have already suffered due to their batting in their opening Group A match of the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy against India in Dubai where their top-order crumbled and they were reduced to 35-5 in not time.

Centurion Towhid Hridoy and Jaker Ali then put up a rescue act with a brilliant 154-run partnership to bail Bangladesh out from the early collapse but it wasn't enough to avert defeat.

If Bangladesh find themselves in a similar situation against New Zealand in today's do-or-die contest, a similar rescue act would once again most likely fall short on the typically flat surfaces at Rawalpindi.

In recent years, this venue has witnessed many big chases, the latest ones coming in 2023, when Pakistan won two games against New Zealand chasing 337 and 289 runs.

Keeping this record in mind, Bangladesh surely won't want any kind of slip ups in their batting, otherwise, their dreams of progressing to the knockout phase of the Champions Trophy could end today.

Poor form of some of the batters and the fact that three of the top six batters got out for a duck against India raises concerns and it would be interesting to see what changes the team management makes for the match against the Kiwis.

"I'm not concerned about their form. I just think that we need to assess and put together our batting in the first 10 overs a little bit better than we've done. And as you say, the middle order and the lower order have done really well. So, it's up to our top order batters to put things together in the first 10 overs, 15 overs especially," Bangladesh head coach Phil Simmons told reporters during a press conference yesterday.

"Some teams are different in tournament cricket than in a series, so you can't really match it up like that. So, you have to take what they're going into the tournament with now and then look at that, not look at the past series," he added.