Pakistan hoping against hope for semifinals berth

London, July 4 

Pakistan will go all out in their final World Cup group fixture with Bangladesh despite facing a near impossible task to qualify for the semi-finals, skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed said on the eve of the match at Lord's.

Pakistan, fifth in the table behind New Zealand who occupy the fourth and final knockout berth, have to bat first against Bangladesh and win by a margin of at least 316 runs to leapfrog the Kiwis on net run rate. “It is very difficult, 316 runs is a big margin. Only if you're batting first, if you score 600 runs or 500 runs," the skipper said. "I don't know what the study is behind this, but I can't do anything... definitely, we're interested in finishing on a high note. So we will try our best in tomorrow's match," he added. Bangladesh coach Steve Rhodes said his team were desperate to seal another victory over the 1992 champions in what will be skipper Mashrafe Mortaza's final World Cup game. — Reuters

Pitch and conditions

Green tinge to the wicket. Weather is likely to be hot and sunny

• 6 Out of seven innings at this World Cup, Mohammad Hafeez has been caught out
• 1 Wicket in seven matches for Mashrafe Mortaza, who had taken 265 wickets in 209 matches before the start of 2019 World Cup
• 46 Percent of Bangladesh’s wicket have come at the death, the most by a team in this edition 

Ban vs Pak in World Cup

• Matches 1
• Pakistan won 0
• Bangladesh won 1

Form guide

Bangladesh: LWLWL
Pakistan: WWWLL
(L=lost W=won; Last five completed matches, most recent first)

TOP RUNGETTERS

• Player Matches Runs 
• R Sharma 7 544
• S Al Hasan 7 542 
• D Warner         8 516 

TOP WICKET-TAKERS

• Player Matches Wkts 
• M Starc       8 24 
• L Ferguson    7 17 
• J Archer       9 17