Bangladesh smash Scots

Bangladesh needed just 34.1 overs to reel in Scotland's modest total of 152 on Thursday.

Navdeep Poonia was Scotland's best, posting a respectable 32 from 34 balls faced but he did it alone with the rest of the Scottish bats failing to fire. The Scots lost nine wickets as they crawled to 152 from their full allotment.

Abdur Razzak was the best of the Bangladeshi bowlers with 3/25 from 10 overs.

- Cricket Australia

Bangladesh cause upset over New Zealand

Bangladesh has caused the first upset of the World Cup by chasing down New Zealand's total of 224 with an over to spare in their World Cup warm-up at Barbados. Key bowlers for Bangladesh were Mashrafe Mortaza who took 4-44 and Abdur Razzak who snagged 4-26.

World Cup Squads

Here are the squads / teams for the 2007 Cricket World Cup...

Australia:
Ricky Ponting (Captain), Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Andrew Symonds, Matt Hayden, Michael Clark, Brad Hogg, Michael Hussey, Shane Watson, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Brad Hodge, Shaun Tait

Bangladesh
Habibul Bashar (Captain), Shahriar Nafees, Abdur Razzak, Aftab Ahmed, Javed Omar, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mohammad Ashraful, Mohammad Rafique, Mushfiqur Rahim (wicketkeeper), Rajin Saleh, Saqibul Hasan, Shahadat Hossain, Syed Rasel, Tamim Iqbal, Tapash Baisya

Bermuda
Irvine Romaine (Captain), Janeiro Tucker, Saleem Mukuddem, Dwayne Leverock, Dean Minors, David Hemp, Kevin Hurdle, Lionel Cann, Kwame Tucker, Clay Smith, Malachi Jones, Steven Outerbridge, Delyone Borden, Stefan Kelly, Oliver Pitcher

Canada
John Davison (Captain), Anderson Cummins, Ashish Bagai, Desmond Chumney, Sunil Dhaniram, Henry Osinde, Abdool Samad, George Codrington, Umar Bhatti, Kevin Sandher, Ashif Mulla, Qaiser Ali, Ian Billcliff, Austin Codrington, Geoff Barnett

England
Michael Vaughan (Captain), Andrew Flintoff, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Strauss, James Anderson, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Jamie Dalrymple, Liam Plunkett, Sajid Mahmood, Edmund Joyce, Jonathan Lewis, Paul Nixon, Monty Panesar, Ravinder Bopara

Kenya
Stephen Tikolo (Captain), Thomas Odoyo, Ravindu Shah, Tony Suji, Collins Obuya, Peter Ochieng, David Obuya, Jimmy Kamande, Tanmay Mishra, Maurice Ouma, Nehemiah Odhiambo, Hiren Varaiya, Lameck Onyango, Malhar Patel, Rajesh Bhudia

India
Rahul Dravid (Captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Kaarthick, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan and S Sreesanth

Ireland
Trent Johnston (Captain), Kyle McCallan, Andre Botha, Andrew White, Niall O'Brien, Dave Langford-Smith, Kevin O'Brien, William Porterfield, Jeremy Bray, Eoin Morgan, John Mooney, Peter Gillespie, Paul Mooney, Kenneth Carroll, Boyd Rankin

New Zealand
Stephen Fleming (Captain), Daniel Vettori, Craig McMillan, Scott Styris, Brendon McCullum, Lou Vincent, Jacob Oram, Daryl Tuffey, Shane Bond, James Franklin, Peter Fulton, Ross Taylor, Jeetan Patel, Mark Gillespie, Michael Mason

Pakistan
Inzamam-ul-Haq (Captain), Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan, Azhar Mahmood, Shoaib Malik, Muhammad Sami, Imran Nazir, Kamran Akmal, Naved-ul-Hasan, Mohammad Hafeez, Iftikhar Anjum, Umar Gul, Danish Kaneria, Yasir Arafat

Scotland
Craig Wright (Captain), Dougie Brown, Gavin Hamilton, John Blain, Neil McCallum, Ryan Watson, Ross Lyons, Fraser Watts, Paul Hoffmann, Colin Smith, Majid Haq, Navdeep Poonia, Dewald Nel, Douglas Lockhart, Glenn Rogers

South Africa
Graeme Smith (Captain), Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Herschelle Gibbs, Makhaya Ntini, Andrew Hall, Justin Kemp, Andre Nel, Ashwell Prince, Charl Langeveldt, Roger Telemachus, Robin Peterson, AB de Villiers, Loots Bosman

Sri Lanka
Mahela Jayawardene (Captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Chaminda Vaas, M Muralitharan, Marvan Atapattu, Kumar Sangakkara, Russel Arnold, Tillekeratne Dilshan, Dilhara Fernando, Farveez Maharoof, Upul Tharanga, Lasith Malinga, Malinga Bandara, Nuwan Kulasekara, Chamara Silva

The Netherlands
Luuk Van Troost (Captain), Tim De Leede, Bas Zuiderent, Daan van Bunge, Jeroen Smits, Edgar Schiferli, Ryan ten Doeschate, Peter Borren, Alexei Kervezee, Darron Reekers, Billy Stelling, Adeel Raja, Mohammad Kashif, Mark Jonkman, Eric Szwarczynski

West Indies
Brian Lara (Captain), Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Marlon Samuels, Corey Collymore, Dwayne Bravo, Ian Bradshaw, Dwayne Smith, Jerome Taylor, Denesh Ramdin, Daren Powell, Devon Smith, Lendl Simmons, Kieron Pollard

Zimbabwe
Prosper Utseya (Captain), Stuart Matsikenyeri, Brendan Taylor, Gary Brent, Elton Chigumbura, Vusimuzi Sibanda, Anthony Ireland, Edward Rainsford, Justice Chibhabha, Terrence Duffin, Tawanda Mupariwa, Chris Mpofu, Sean Williams, Keith Dabengwa, Friday Kasteni

Pakistan, Bangladesh players given more incentive to win

The Pakistan Cricket Board is offering its players a reward of up to US$1.2 million if they win the World Cup. Under the plan, each player will receive a bonus of 5 million rupees (US$84,000) if they win the tournament.

Their also offering a cash bonus of US$20,000 if they make the semi-finals.

Bangladesh has also employed a similar scheme to spur on it's players,

"To spur the Bangladesh Cricket Team on in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, the Board announced incentive bonuses for the players,” the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) said. “Accordingly, each player will receive an additional US$2000 (on top of the usual win bonus) per match for winning a Group Stage game.

“If the team qualify for the Super Eight stage then each player will receive an additional US$3000 (on top of the usual win bonus) for winning a game.”

Rahul Dravid looking forward to start of World Cup

Indian captain Rahul Dravid is happy the talk is almost over, with the World Cup less then three weeks away. Speaking at the launch of the team's new uniform Dravid had the following to say -

"In some ways, it's a relief that the World Cup has finally arrived after the amount of discussions that have taken place on television and in the newspapers over the last several months which is understandable in a World Cup year"

"We are finally going out and performing on the field. It's an exciting opportunity and a great challenge for us as it's the pinnacle of one-day cricket in the world. We will try and give our very best. Everyone in the team is excited" he added.

However, Dravid admits captaining the team in a cricket mad nation can be difficult at times.

"Captaining the team has been an exciting experience over the last 16 to 18 months. For a kid growing up in India it is obviously a dream to play for India.

"But there are definitely more headaches when you are captain than when you are just a player in the team.

"I am sure Sachin (Tendulkar) and Sourav (Ganguly) will agree."

India kicks off its campaign on the 17th of March against Bangladesh.