Home ›› 31 Mar 2023 ›› Sport
Bangladesh will go into the third and final Twenty20 International of their three-match series in Chattogram today aiming at consecutive clean sweeps in the format, their first-ever.
This would also extend Bangladesh’s winning streak across formats to 10 matches.
In the first two matches of the series, Bangladesh completely obliterated the visiting Irish as they won the first match by 22 runs (DLS method) before taking the thrashing further to 77 runs in the second, which was their second-biggest in the format by the margin of runs.
The Tigers have performed brilliantly with both bat and ball as the batters have smashed the Irish bowlers all around the field, while the bowlers have not allowed the visitors to even have a sniff, even when they needed 104 runs in eight overs in the first match.
And they are looking to let go of nothing in the final match, as skipper Shakib Al Hasan said.
“If you’re a good team, when you go to Australia or England, they always try to win 3-0 if they’re up 2-0, we’ll try the same. No chance of us being complacent. We might try a few new players but they’ll be just as hungry to do well,” he said on Wednesday.
In terms of new players, Bangladesh might hand a debut to leg-spinner Rishad Hossain in the place of Nasum Ahmed.
On the other hand, Ireland will look to finally find a win in the tour as the only match they were not hammered in was the one that was abandoned due to rain.
Their stand-in captain Paul Stirling hoped for a different outcome today.
“We have to think about team selection, we’ll have an unused pitch on Friday and hopefully we’ll be one step ahead. There’s no dead rubber as far as we’re concerned and we want to turn on Friday and show we’re serious,” he said on Wednesday.
