Ireland won the toss and chose to bowl against Bangladesh in the first match of three-match T20 International series at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram on Monday.
Since being consigned to ODI series defeat to England for the first time after 2016 by losing first two matches, Bangladesh won six straight matches. In their period they won the last ODI against England to avoid ODI whitewash and then swept English in three-match T20 series emphatically. The success continued as they won the ODI series against Ireland by 2-0 and more importantly in every game, they rewrote records.
Given their past record against Ireland and the recent success, it is expected Bangladesh would sweep the T20 series also. The two sides played five matches in this format so far with the last on 2016. Ireland won the first match between the two sides in 2009 T20 World Cup in England but Bangladesh later whitewashed Ireland in three-match series in 2012 that too on Ireland soil. Their last game in 2016 World Cup in Dharmashala was washed out.
Bangladesh: 1 Litton Das (wk), 2 Rony Talukdar, 3 Najmul Hossain Shanto, 4 Shakib Al Hasan (capt), 5 Towhid Hridoy, 6 Shamim Hossain, 7 Mehidy Hasan Miraz, 8 Nasum Ahmed, 9 Taskin Ahmed, 10 Mustafizur Rahman, 11 Hasan Mahmud.
Ireland: 1 Paul Stirling (capt), 2 Ross Adair, 3 Lorcan Tucker (wk), 4 Harry Tector, 5 Curtis Campher, 6 George Dockrell, 7 Gareth Delany, 8 Mark Adair, 9 Craig Young, 10 Graham Hume, 11 Ben White.