(Cricket news) The Afghanistan tour of Bangladesh will begin from 23rd February, the tour will begin with 3 ODI matches at Chattogram and end with 2 T20’s at Dhaka. Bangladesh have also been playing well at home and with their main players into the squad it will only make it worse for Afghanistan.
The two teams have played 8 ODI matches with Bangladesh winning 5 of them including the last two matches. The teams are facing for the time since 2019, Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan will be leading the attack for the Bangladesh team. Iqbal is coming back into the side after a gap of six months, his last match was against Zimbabwe in July where he scored a century and it was the last match for Shakib too. Both players have been on top form whenever the two sides have met.
Iqbal has scored 273 runs in 5 innings against Afghanistan and is the only one who has scored a century when the two sides have met. Shakib has taken 18 wickets in 7 innings and is the only one to take a 5 wicket haul as things might change this time, the Afghan side too have top class spinners. Bangladesh side has strong batters and bowlers this time as Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das will add more strength to the team. Amongst the bowlers, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed will be the pace attack for the team.
The Afghanistan side will try to overturn their record in the 50 over format. Although it will be tough beating the hosts, the visitors can try to use their bowlers as much as possible. What they lack in pace, they make up for it in spin. Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman should be able to lead the resistance battle among the bowlers. Their batting department does have good strength but fail to deliver in the format, in their previous series against Netherlands the batters could not hold onto the wicket for long.
Afghanistan Captain, Hashmatullah Shahidi has been able to get the runs against the Bangladesh side. The left hander can hold his ground against the bowlers but will be severely tested with pace and spin. Rahmat Shah will be again looking to top score for the side as he has done in the previous matches, wicketkeeper Rahmanullah Gurbaz has already scored 2 hundreds in 6 matches and will again try to give a lightning start to the team during the power plays.
Also read: India women lose rain affected encounter against NZ despite Richa Ghosh heroics
