Bangladesh win toss, choose to bat against Zimbabwe

Bangladesh won the toss and chose to bat against Zimbabwe in their third match of the T20 World Cup at the Australia’s historical ground in Gabba in Brisbane on Sunday.

Bangladesh won their first match against Netherlands by 9 runs before suffering their biggest ever T20 defeat when South Africa inflicted a 104-run defeat on them.

However Zimbabwe are brimming with confidence after their landmark one-run victory against tournament favourites Pakistan.

Just a few months ago, it looked Zimbabwe are no match for Bangladesh in any format of the cricket but the things changed dynamically as the Eastern African nations emerged as one of the giant killers in this format. After years of struggle, deficiency and weak cricket culture, they invested a lot on their domestic circuit in planned way, which paid the dividends. Their cricket renaissance in fact began when they beat Bangladesh in ODI and T20 format just three months ago.

The two teams so far met 19 times in this format with Bangladesh still leading the contest by 12-7. Overall Bangladesh played 141 T20 Internationals and while they won 48 matches, they had lost 90 matches. Three other matches ended in no result.

Squads:

Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (captain), Yasir Ali Rabbi, Afif Hossain, Mossadek Hossain, Liton Das, Yasir Ali, Nurul Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain, Shoriful Islam, Hasan Mahmud, Najmul Hossain, Nasum Ahmed and Soumya Sarkar.

Zimbabwe: Craig Ervine (c), Ryan Burl, Regis Chakabva, Tendai Chatara, Bradley Evans, Luke Jongwe, Clive Madande, Wessly Madhevere, Wellington Masakadza, Tony Munyonga, Blessing Muzarabani, Richard Ngarava, Sikandar Raza, Milton Shumba and Sean Williams.