I’d like to give massive props to my Bengali brothers for their epic smacking of South Africa yesterday. “When the Banglas bat well, they’re just briliant,” wrote the Guardian’s over-by-over commentator toward the end of Bangladesh’s innings, in which they scored 251 led by a fantastic 87 from 22-year-old Mohammad Ashraful, pictured here doing his thing. That set up South Africa with a sizeable target to chase in the afternoon, and instead they disgracefully folded, surrendering four wickets by the 20th over and two more in the 27th, and playing out the rest without spark nor art to a total of 184 all out.

The win not only confirms that Bangladesh are no longer by any standard “minnows” of the game — in case their win over India at the start of the cup and previous successes hadn’t already made that clear — but it also injects some new excitement into a competition that was first quieted by the early exit of two of the main contenders with the largest and most enthusiastic global support, India and Pakistan; then stunned and embarrassed by the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer (still unresolved officially, with no theory ruled out, including that of an accident); and then dulled by the tudding superiority of title holders Australia and the emergence right behind them of New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa, outclassing everyone else and hurtling toward the semi-finals.

No longer. Now with the eight-team round-robin Super Eights about halfway through, the remaining matches have regained excitement thanks to the Bangladesh victory, as South Africa no longer look inevitable semi-finalists, and three sides — England, Bangladesh, and host West Indies — are all very much back in the tournament. Which means that we are looking at several huge games coming up. Today, England go up against titanic Australia, a tall order but not out of the question; Tuesday, West Indies face South Africa with the winner taking a serious option on the semi-finals, and most of the world will be rooting for the hosts, who are due for a breakout performance; and Wednesday it’s England versus Bangladesh.

For today’s match England have won the toss and decided to bat first. The Guardian’s over-by-over is here. Just like their football live commentaries, it’s funny and worth checking out whether you understand the game or not. If you want to geek out with the technical details you’ll want to follow the Cricinfo OBO here, but in that case you probably know that already. If you’re at all curious about the game and eager to understand it with a little context, today is Sunday and a fine day to head to your local desi, Trini, Guyanese, Jamaican, English, Australian, or Kiwi pub, tavern, lounge, jerk shack or roti spot and check out the game on television. If you’re in New York chances are Eight Mile Creek is already packed with soon-to-be-inebriated Ozzies. But Brooklyn and Queens have numerous Caribbean and desi joints that are showing the matches. I’m sure that in any of the major US cities you can find a spot without too much sleuthing. Feel free to pass on tips in the comments!