Putting behind their disastrous performance in the last two matches, Bangladesh vowed to come all guns blazing to avoid an ignominious whitewash at the hands of Afghanistan when they take on the visitors for the third and final ODI tomorrow (Tuesday) at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chattogram.
The match starts at 2 PM and will be aired live on Gazi TV and T Sports, reports BSS.
Bangladesh lost the first match by 17 runs on DLS and suffered a crushing 142-run, their largest margin defeat by runs against Afghanistan, in the second game to loss their only third series at home since 2015. World champions England were the team to beat Bangladesh twice in this period.
But what the English couldn't do, Afghanistan looked on course to do that by inflicting a whitewash, something Bangladesh never experienced at home since 2012.
Last time Bangladesh lost all of the matches of the ODI series at home was back in 2012 against Pakistan. Later in 2014, they also suffered a 2-0 defeat to India in three-match series.
Given Bangladesh's performance and the recent retirement drama of Tamim Iqbal, that is believed to put an adverse impact in the dressing room, it looked unlikely that the hosts could avoid a whitewash. Moreover lack of courage against Rashid Khan further put them in huge trouble.
Apart from the senior duo like Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim, no one appeared to be as bold as it should be against the high quality bowler like Rashid. It's not Shakib and Mushfiqur always were comfortable against Rashid's googly but they overcame that shortcomings by their positive approach, which is absent in the case of the current stars like Liton Das and Najmul Hossain Shanto. Both of them scored huge runs recently but playing against Rashid is a different ball game.
Even though pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi were wrecker-in-chief on paper, taking six wickets in the first two matches, it was Rashid who made Bangladesh trembled all the way. Bangladesh indeed made decent start in last two matches but when Rashid got into act, they experienced a collapse.
The first and foremost task for them would to be find way to deal with Rashid, which is important to avoid whitewash.
Bangladesh allrounder Mehidy Hasan Miraz believed that they had errors which should be rectified as soon as possible if they want to not only avoid the whitewash but also to do well in upcoming Asia Cup and World Cup.
"The lacking that we had in these two matches and the mistakes we made will allow us to become more alert since we have big series ahead of us," Miraz said. "We have Asia Cup and World Cup games against them and I hope we would be able to overcome our errors."
Fast bowler Ebadot Hossain was ruled out of third ODI with knee injury and so one change is expected but it is likely that Bangladesh would make several changes.
Before the series, the win-loss ratio was in Bangladesh's favour with 7-4 in 11 matches and now it is 7-6. One more win can help Afghanistan to level with Bangladesh in terms of win-loss ratio. However as crucial as it was, they had already got the taste of winning a maiden ODI series against Bangladesh.
Afghanistan coach Jonathon Trott said that they will not be getting carried away by earning their maiden ODI series win as they need to keep their winning momentum leading up to the Asia Cup and the World Cup.
"We needed to be at the top of our game to come here and compete. It is important that we focus on the next game as well. Don't get too wound up or hyped up. We can't rest on our laurels if we want to improve as a side looking ahead to the Asia Cup and World Cup. When you go to competitions and Cups, you need to keep winning," he said.
Bangladesh squad: Tamim Iqbal (capt), Liton Das, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Towhid Hridoy, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Hasan Mahmud, Shoriful Islam, Afif Hossain and Naim Sheikh.
Afghanistan squad: Hashmatullah Shahidi (captain), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdul Rahman, Shahidullah, Zia-ur-Rehman, Wafadar Momand, Mohammad Saleem, Sayed Shirzad.