Different surface, different Australia

Bangladesh might have a psychological advantage when they play Australia today in their last match of this year's T20 World Cup as they got the better of the Aussies at home convincingly just a couple of months ago.

But the reality is different when it comes to the Tigers facing Australia in ICC tournaments, on pitches made by ICC.

Whether home or away, Bangladesh have faced Australia four times in T20 World Cups, and the results have always been the same. Bangladesh lost all four matches; the margins were nine wickets, 27 runs, seven wickets, and three wickets.

But in August, Australia toured Bangladesh for the first-ever bilateral T20I series between the side, which ended up 4-1 in favour of the Tigers, with Australia playing without a bunch of their key players and regular skipper.

That takes the overall head-to-head count between Bangladesh and Australia to 4-5, but in reality, the competition is not that close.

Bangladesh have struggled in every aspect in the World Cup, and are yet to secure a win in the Super 12 stage. On the contrary, Australia only suffered against archrivals England and managed wins against Sri Lanka and South Africa.

Aussie spinner Ashton Agar said on Wednesday that the results will be different against Bangladesh from their last meeting as the teams and conditions have changed.

"Very different conditions. It's probably the first time a lot of us have played in those conditions like that in Bangladesh, and we definitely found that challenging and Bangladesh played those conditions incredibly well. We weren't surprised that they played well at home, but it is very different now," Agar said in the pre-match press conference.

"We have a very different looking side, and the wickets certainly aren't playing like those pitches that we played on over there. We need to win, and the guys are really excited to play and really want to win, as well," he added.

To the Australian batsmen, Mustafizur Rahman was like an unsolved riddle, but Agar thinks that "The Fizz" will not be as unplayable in Dubai as he was in Mirpur.

"I think the conditions played a huge part in Mustafizur being very difficult to face. The amount of spin he was able to get with his big off-spinning slower ball was amazing. But that relied heavily on the surface," Agar said.