Bangladesh eye 3-0 sweep over England
After losing the three-match One-Day International (ODI) series 1-2 against England, Bangladesh have flipped the script in the Twenty20 series.
The Tigers have won the first two T20s and have taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series, sealing their maiden bilateral series win over England.
With the series already in the bag, Bangladesh will take the field against England for the third Twenty20 on Tuesday with only one goal, completing their first ever series sweep over the reigning T20 World Champions.
The match will begin at 3:00pm and will take place at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka.
Bangladesh and England are at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to the shortest format of the game.
While England are a dominant force in the cutting edge version of the gentlemen’s game, a two-time World Champion and at the forefront of change, Bangladesh have never quite adjusted to the fast-paced nature of the format, have been hammered in every T20 World Cup and are languishing at the bottom.
But on Tuesday, Shakib Al Hasan’s team will have the chance to do something only two teams have managed to do against England.
England have been clean swept only twice in a bilateral T20 series– against Australia and South Africa.
In 2014, England’s perennial rivals Australia inflicted a 3-0 series win against them. Two years after that, South Africa also clean swept England in a bilateral series, although that was a two-match affair.
Bangladesh have only once won a three-match T20 series by a 3-0 margin, which was against Ireland in Ireland back in 2012.
The Tigers have two more clean sweeps to their name, against Zimbabwe and the UAE in 2020 and 2022 respectively. Bangladesh won both those series by the same margin, 2-0.
If Bangladesh defeat England in the third T20, they will seal their maiden 3-0 clean sweep at home in a bilateral T20 series.
For that to happen, Bangladesh need to replicate what they have done so far in the series.
In the first match, Hasan Mahmud bowled brilliantly in the death overs, conceding only five runs from two overs and Najmul Hossain Shanto hit a brisk half-century to set the stage for a comfortable six-wicket win in Chattogram.
The second match of the series was a low-scoring affair, where the hosts bundled out the tourists for only 117 and then got over the line with four wickets in hand and seven balls to spare. This time, it was Mehidy Hasan Miraz’s all-round performance that catapulted Bangladesh to a series clinching victory.
England’s pride has been hurt after defeats in the first two matches and the Jos Buttler led side would definitely go all out to salvage their pride.
England have been hurt by their decision to go with a bowling heavy squad for the series, as in both matches they have struggled to carry momentum into the final overs of their innings.
The visitors need the likes of Buttler, Moeen Ali and Dawid Malan to put their hands up and bat till the end of the innings.
Bangladesh, on the other hand, is likely to go with the same XI as the second T20I.
This match will also mark the end of England’s tour of Bangladesh. The English team will return home while the Bangladesh team will travel to Sylhet for their next international assignment, a three-match ODI series against Ireland which will begin on 18 March.