In a bid to seal their first ever series against Pakistan in the Twenty 20 international (T20I) format, Bangladesh will take on the visitors in the second match at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium today, Tuesday.
The match will start at 6:00 pm and will be aired live on T Sports and Nagorik TV.
Bangladesh stood on the brink of a history after thrashing Pakistan in the first game of the three-match series by seven wickets.
Another victory will confirm the series for them with a match to spare. If Bangladesh win today’s game, they will clinch another series for the first time against a top flight nation, having won their maiden series in Sri Lanka less than a week ago.
Pakistan, which swept Bangladesh in three-match T20 series at home in May, found them completely wanting in the first game as they struggled against the Bangladesh bowlers, who utilised the home pitch to good effect.
Taskin Ahmed ended with 3-22 but Mustafizur Rahman did the real damage with an astounding figure of 4-0-6-2. Pakistan were wrapped up for just 110 in 19.3 overs, a total that Bangladesh gunned down with almost five overs to spare.
In a pitch, where Pakistan batters found them in troublesome situations, Bangladesh batted with ease, specially opener Parvez Hossain Emon, who blasted a 39 ball-56 not out to script the side’s only fourth victory in 23 meetings against Pakistan.
Three of Bangladesh’s four victories against Pakistan have come at Sher-e-Bangla Stadium, a stat that gave them a confidence to confirm the series.
“We definitely know about the wicket because we played lots of cricket in Mirpur. It’s not an easy wicket to bat on, but the way we batted, it looks good,” Bangladesh captain Liton Das said, adding that they want to go in the same vein during the second match.
Bangladesh are unlikely to bring any changes to their winning combination for today’s match.
Pakistan, however, vowed to come back in the series, showing a strong performance in a match turned out to be a ‘must win’ game for them.
“We got off to a little bit of a flyer. Fakhar Zaman played four or five shots. It gave us a false indication about how the surface was playing,” Pakistan head coach Mike Hesson said.
“We didn’t help ourselves through the middle. We chose some poor options but when the ball started to nip through and bounced steeply, we probably didn’t assess that it was a bit more challenging to play high-risk shots.”
Squad
Bangladesh: Liton Das (capt), Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Parvez Hossain Emon, Mohammad Naim, Towhid Hridoy, Jaker Ali, Shamim Hossain, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Rishad Hossain, Mahedi Hasan, Nasum Ahmed, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Shoriful Islam, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Mohammad Saifuddin.
Pakistan: Salman Ali Agha (captain), Abrar Ahmed, Ahmed Daniyal, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Hassan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Haris (wk), Mohammad Nawaz, Sahibzada Farhan (wk), Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza and Sufyan Moqim.