Two sides who will be looking to put T20 World Cup 2021 disappointment behind them begin a T20 series on Friday when Bangladesh take on their Asian rivals Pakistan in the first of three T20 internationals in Dhaka.
Bangladesh never really offered anything which suggested they were comfortable in the T20 World Cup and duly bowed out at the end of the Super 12 stage. Pakistan went a step further but will have been disappointed to lose in the semi-final.
Bangladesh
In many ways the poor showing of Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup was a surprise. I say that because prior to it they had taken care of Australia and New Zealand in home series. That looked good on paper but we shouldn’t forget they were largely second string sides they beat, and they beat them in conditions which were incredibly home biased. We now know that did them no favours at all when they got to the UAE for the tournament.
Even though the next T20 World Cup is just 11 months away, Bangladesh look to be looking well into the future having named a very young squad for this series. I understand that changes needed to be made after that disastrous T20 campaign but I’m not sure ripping up the play book and starting again was what was needed. There should be a natural improvement in Bangladesh in this match now they are back in their home conditions, but the absence of some key experienced players might hinder that.
Pakistan
It is just over a week since Pakistan suffered heartache in the semi-final of the T20 World Cup and now they have to bounce back and build again for the next tournament. As with every team who competed in that competition, matches ahead of the next one are few and far between so it is important that the former world champions hit the ground running as they get ready for Australia next year. They might need a match to blow the disappointment of the World Cup out of their system though.
The good thing for Pakistan is that they don’t need to improve a whole lot on their World Cup campaign. They just fell foul of being forced to bat first in that semi-final. Even then they lost to the eventual champions who pulled off a heist in the final four overs against them. It looks like Pakistan are going to use the next few matches to build a squad to take to Australia with them and all eyes will be on the middle order here to see how it functions.
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Team News
There is a lot of change for Bangladesh in this match. Shakib-al-Hasan was going to miss out anyway with the injury he sustained at the World Cup. There is no place in the side here for Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das or Soumya Sarkar.
Pakistan have also rung a few changes. Imad Wasim and Mohammad Hafeez had good campaigns in the UAE but we won’t be seeing them here. We also won’t see Asif Ali either so the likes of Haider Ali, Khushdil Shah and Mohammad Nawaz will come into the side.
Betting
I’m expecting a bit of a low scoring contest here. This is a day match so we are not going to have any dew concerns but the temperature is still going to be strong enough to be challenging. The pitch is the interesting denominator in this match. They were very ordinary in the series against Australia and New Zealand and although it has been said that some work has been done on them, they are never going to be brilliant because the strength of this Bangladesh outfit is in their bowling unit.
Even if the pitch is better than we saw when Australia and New Zealand were here I still think we are in for a low scoring match. This Bangladesh batting unit looks very light and Pakistan are full of bowlers who should be able to function in these conditions whereas Bangladesh have bowlers to keep tabs on the Pakistan batsmen, and actually it is only really the top three who are established at this level aside from Shoaib Malik. The run line for this match is 264.5 but that might be a little on the high side.
Tips
Back Under 264.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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