Bengaluru, July 1: India will be meeting Bangladesh in their eighth game of the 2019 World Cup in England on Tuesday, July 2. It is a packed schedule for the Indian side towards the business end of the tournament since they had started late. Virat Kohli's men played the West Indies on Thursday, England on Sunday and will be playing Sri Lanka next Saturday to wrap up their league campaign at the quadrennial event.

Bangladesh beat India by 5 wickets in their first meeting in WC

Match Scorecard

India's rivalry with Bangladesh at the World Cup has been an absorbing one, thanks to the Tigers' shock win over the two-time champions in their very first meeting at Port of Spain, West Indies, on March 17, 2007. That five-wicket loss to their neighbours had cost India a place in the Super Eight and that had a profound impact on the entire tournament's commercial success. Pakistan, too, had crashed out in the preliminary stage after losing to Ireland, a non-Test-playing nation then.

The ICC had in fact tweaked their WC scheduling pattern after the early exits of India and Pakistan in the 2007 edition that had left the tournament pale. With a lot of participants, the World Cups saw either two groups featuring a number of teams so that anybody suffering a shock loss could get another chance or the number of participants were reduced to only 10 (2019 is seeing that, so will 2023). Having a group of six to seven teams or a single league format featuring 10 teams means one team will get to play enough games and not crash out soon.

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The 2007 World Cup had seen four groups, each comprising four teams which made it essential for teams to win at least two out of three games to make the next round. And with one team being too minor, it turned out to be a triangular contest between the other three teams. India were the worst performers in the group as they lost to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the two other top competitors and could only win against Bermuda, the baby side that all others thumped.

The 2007 edition scheduling was similar to the 1975 and 1979 editions when two groups of four teams each were in the fray. The top two from each would make it to the semi-finals. India could win only one in the 1975 edition when they thrashed the then East Africa by 10 wickets but lost to England and New Zealand. In 1979, they did worse by losing all three games in the group - to the West Indies, New Zealand and even Sri Lanka who were yet to play their first Test match then.

India later beat Bangladesh by 87 runs in the 2011 World Cup and 109 runs in the quarter-finals of the 2015 World Cup.