Home ›› 14 Mar 2023 ›› Sport
After grabbing their first-ever series win over England in any format, Bangladesh are now eyeing a historic clean sweep against the visitors as the sides will lock horns in the final Twenty20 International of the three-match series today.
In the first match, Bangladesh completely obliterated the World Champions in all three departments to win the game with ease. In the second, the Tigers had to go through more of a struggle on a tricky Mirpur pitch but they managed to keep hold of their nerve to find the series win.
With the series win in the bag, Bangladesh will now definitely go for the clean sweep heading into the final game.
“We will try (to get the clean sweep). Because this is a great opportunity. If we can play well on the field, we can do well in the next match,” Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Player of the Match of the second T20I, said after that match.
In both wins, Bangladesh had one factor in common – Najmul Hossain Shanto performing. The left-handed batter struck a 30-ball 51 in the first match, and then played a composed unbeaten 46 under severe pressure to guide the Tigers home in the second. In the third T20I, Najmul will be looking to make it a perfect series and grab the player of the series award.
While it has been a purple patch for Najmul, Liton Das had a series to forget starting from the One-Day Internationals. He only has 21 runs in the first two T20Is, and the right-handed batter, who was Bangladesh’s best batter across formats last year, will hope that the final match will see him get back into runs.
Towhid Hridoy, who got his international debut in the first match of the series, will hope that he gets a big score following his small contributions of 25 and 17 in the first two matches, while Afif Hossain will hope that he gets some runs in the bank too, considering the batter had a poor World Cup outing as well.
Bangladesh might tinker with their XI as the series has already been won. Left-arm spinner Tanvir Islam is almost certain to make his international debut in place of Nasum Ahmed, and Rejaur Rahman Raja’s inclusion is a possibility if the management decides to rest Mustafizur Rahman or Taskin Ahmed keeping the upcoming Ireland series in mind.
England, on the other hand, will look to replicate what Bangladesh did in the ODIs, winning the final game after losing the first two.
However, the visitors do not have any wriggling room as they have a small squad of 13 members, with the two players not playing in the second match were Mark Wood and Reece Topley, and among those two, the latter is an injury concern.
That means England might field an unchanged XI today with the only possible change could be Wood coming in to replace Chris Jordan, of whose bowling Bangladesh scored the
winning runs on Sunday.
The pitch at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium is likely to stay the same as the second T20I, with some extra bounce available for both spinners and pacers.
The pitch in the second match called comparisons with the pitches from Bangladesh’s series win over Australia and New Zealand in 2021, where the Tigers managed to win their first T20I series wins over those sides there.
In those series, Bangladesh failed to clinch a clean sweep. Today, they will look for exactly that, a clean sweep for the English, for the first time.
