India eye semis, Bangladesh fight

Similarities between last year's Champions Trophy and this World T20 were a thought before the tournament began, but two India matches later it seems this is exactly identical. Even as India have - against whatever trends you can develop in Twenty20 games - done extremely well, in two days the Supreme Court of India has turned the heat on the Indian cricket administration.

This time last year MS Dhoni had a series of question marks against him through his involvement with India Cements, whose managing director had saved his job, but he managed to ward away all evil with a stunning Champions Trophy win. The questions are back, this time with much more force, as a day before India's third match in World T20 the Supreme Court heard from prosecution that Dhoni had lied under oath in trying to maintain distance between Chennai Super Kings and Guruanth Meiyappan, who used team information for illegal betting.

	Questions aplenty for MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh © Associated Press  Enlarge

On the field, though, two exceptional days with the ball have made sure India are within striking distance of progression to the semi-finals. In fact, even before they start their third match - never mind more wrath of the court anticipated in the morning - if West Indies beat Australia in the afternoon, India will be all but through to the next round. All they will need to do after that is beat Bangladesh, who will be desperate to prove that phrases such as "all the opposition has to do" are not used in the same sentence as "beat Bangladesh".

After getting the hopes of the home crowds up by beating Afghanistan emphatically, the hosts have brought much pain to the crowds by losing to Hong Kong and tamely so to West Indies. In four matches, not a single batsman has batted long enough to score a fifty, catches have been dropped regularly, and ground fielding has been poor. You cannot expect to win playing in that manner. Bangladesh once compounded India's off-field misery when they beat them in the World Cup in 2007 to bring to an end the controversial tenure of Greg Chappell. If they are to do something similar here, we will need a team unrecognisable from the one that has taken the field in the last two matches.

Srinivasan set to remain BCCI representative at ICC

Despite having been removed as the BCCI president by the Supreme Court, N Srinivasan will continue to represent the BCCI at the ICC. He is set to attend the ICC Executive Board meeting, to be held in Dubai on April 9-10, which is likely to discuss the legal perspectives of the proposed ICC governance model, including Srinivasan's elevation as the ICC chairman.

When requested by the BCCI counsel to issue an order stating that regardless of the status of the current case, Srinivasan's position in the ICC would not be affected, the Supreme Court said it would not pass an order on the subject since it was an "internal" matter of the BCCI.

"We want him to attend ICC meets, it's because of his hard work in the past few months that BCCI has been strengthened in world cricket," BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel told The Indian Express. "Even the court has not objected to Srinivasan attending the ICC meet."

According to the Supreme Court directive, no person employed with India Cements can be a part of BCCI's administration. While Patel didn't respond to a query on whether Srinivasan, the India Cements boss, will have to resign from his post to attend the ICC meeting on BCCI's behalf, another BCCI insider revealed to ESPNcricinfo the technicality that would allow Srinivasan to be the BCCI nominee at the ICC.

"Since he is the chief of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, the BCCI can definitely nominate him for an ICC meeting," said the insider. "This won't be against the Court order since he will not interfere in the BCCI administration in any way. He would be dealing with an external body on BCCI's behalf."

In normal practice, the BCCI president is inducted onto the ICC board and the secretary attends the ICC Chief Executives Committee meetings. The president also nominates the BCCI's representative at ICC meetings at every AGM.

If Srinivasan is able to attend the April meeting, it could pave the way for him to smoothly take charge as the ICC chairman in July as a BCCI nominee. An ICC statement on February 8 said Srinivasan would take over as chairman in July.

At the moment it is unclear what will happen if the BCCI does not nominate Srinivasan, who following the court order cannot be associated with BCCI in any capacity.

The constitutional amendment pertaining to the BCCI's nominee taking over as ICC chairman will have to be ratified during the ICC's annual conference in June. The only obstacle for Srinivasan would be if any of the other Full Members raise an objection citing the ongoing legal proceedings against the BCCI.

The ICC has preferred to remain tight-lipped so far. If the other boards adopt the same approach, there would be no stopping Srinivasan from heading the world governing body despite having been ousted from his home board.

Australia pray against dead rubber

Historically, few teams have been more ruthless in their demolition of the underdogs but, on Sunday, Australia will be rooting for the underdogs. For if Bangladesh don't beat Pakistan in the afternoon, Australia, who have lost two close matches out of two, will be out of the tournament, rendering their remaining matches inconsequential. It will also take out all the sting from what the organisers would have thought would be a top draw: India v Australia on a Sunday night with qualification implications aplenty.

For India, though, this cannot be a dead rubber even though they have become the first team to qualify for the semi-finals. India will dearly love to keep their unbeaten run intact, and end top of their group so that they face the second-placed team from the other group in the semi-final. Despite whatever is going wrong with their administration, the India cricket team has put up a great show so far. Theirs are the only bowlers, other than Nepal's, to have not conceded 140 in this tournament. They have got the right bowling mix for these conditions unless a team can take apart their quicker bowlers. They have not even lost a toss yet, which could have at least challenged their bowlers to bowl in the dewy conditions. To be fair to India, though, they haven't won any of these matches because the opposition had to bowl with the wet ball; dew has hardly been a factor in Mirpur so far.

Australia are one side that can dismantle the Indian bowling - they have done so in their last two World Twenty20 meetings with India - but will they struggle for that motivation and that edge if Pakistan have already beaten Bangladesh and thus knocked them out even before George Bailey walks out for the toss?