DHAKA, July 21, 2021 (BSS) - Bangladesh is eyeing to continue their winning streak in Zimbabwe tour as they take on the hosts in the first of three-match T20 International series tomorrow (Thursday) at the Harare Sports Club.
The match starts at 4.30 PM as per Bangladesh Standard Time and will be aired live on Gazi TV and T Sports.
The first T20 will be Bangladesh’s 100th in this format which they want to make memorable with a victory.
Bangladesh incidentally played their first T20 matches against Zimbabwe under the captaincy of Shahriar Nafees in 2006 and won the game by 43 runs. Mashrafe Bin Mortaza was adjudged man of the match in that game.
If Shakib plays tomorrow’s match, he will be the only Bangladesh player to have played the country’s first and 100th game in this format.
Current two players of Zimbabwe—Brendan Taylor and Sean Williams—were also part of Bangladesh's first T20 match.
The Tigers played three matches in this year, all against New Zealand at away and lost all three matches. The 100th match also opened the door for them to end the win-drought in this format this year.
Bangladesh had already won the one-off Test and as it was expected they inflicted a whitewash on Zimbabwe in a three-match series, showing absolute domination.
This was the sixth time that Bangladesh whitewashed Zimbabwe in ODI series but first at their own den. Bangladesh lost the ODI series to Zimbabwe the last two times they visited the country.
Overall it was Bangladesh’s 15th incident of whitewash in their history—amongst which 12 came against Test nations and the rest of the three were against ICC associate nations.
However, emboldened by their recent record against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh are determined to whitewash Zimbabwe in the T20 International series too. If they can win three matches in row, they will earn the distinction of completing a tour sweep on Zimbabwe for the first time.
Bangladesh’s T20 record however didn’t speak a volume of them even though they have the upper-hand over the Southern African nation in this shortest format of cricket too.
The two teams so far faced off against each other 13 times and Bangladesh won nine matches in contrast to experiencing defeat in four matches. Last time when Bangladesh visited Zimbabwe in 2013, they drew the two-match series by 1-1.
Overall Bangladesh played 99 T20 Internationals and won just 32. They had lost a staggering number of 65 matches while two matches fetched no result.
Bangladesh’s T20I squad: Mahmudullah Riyad (Captain), Tamim Iqbal, Naim Sheikh, Liton Kumar Das, Shakib Al Hasan, Soumya Sarker, Afif Hossain, Shamim Hossain Patwari, Nurul Hasan Sohan, Nasum Ahmed, Sheikh Mahedi Hasan, Aminul Islam Biplob, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam.
