New look Bangladesh to prove point in T20 format

GBNews24 Desk//

In a bid to prove that the future of the country’s cricket will be at safe hands following the departure of the senior players, a new look Bangladesh will take on Zimbabwe for the first T20 game on Saturday.

The match starts at 5:00 pm (Bangladesh Time) at Harare Sports Club and will be aired live at T Sports Channel.

This is the first time a Bangladeshi team was formed in this format without any of their five cricketers—Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Mushfiqur Rahim and Tamim Iqbal—termed as ‘Fabulous Five’ of ‘Fab Five’.

Since their debut in the shortest format of the cricket in 2006 against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh played so far 128 matches and at least one of those five were involved in all of those matches. But the streak will be snapped when they will be out to the field for the first game of the series on Saturday.

Mashrafe retired from this format in 2017 while Tamim announced his retirement officially just before this series. Shakib Al Hasan earlier took a break while Mushfiqur Rahim and regular T20 captain Mahmudullah Riyad were given rest.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) appointed Nurul Hasan Sohan as the interim captain to lead this young, yet an experienced team in a format in which Bangladesh won 44 matches and lost 81 while the rest of three matches ended in a no result.

Under Mahmudullah’s captaincy, Bangladesh won just one game in last 13 encounters, which is why the board lost patience on him. But can Sohan lead the side to winning way?

Statistics showed that Bangladesh had the upper-hand over Zimbabwe, no matter what the format is. Still T20 cricket is the format where the Zimbabwe were able to give the Tigers some torrid times even though Bangladesh won 11 matches and lost 5 in 16 matches between the two sides. On the other hand, Bangladesh are now on a 19-match winning streak against Zimbabwe in their favoured ODI format.

However since Zimbabwe will be playing at home, they will be motivated more to win their first ever T20 series against Bangladesh. They knew it will be a tough task against a team, who also got motivated when they (Bangladesh) play against them.