Bangladesh will be looking to avenge the ODI loss in the first T20I against England at Chattogram’s Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium on Thursday (March 9). They won the third ODI by 50 runs after losing the first two games, to suffer their first home series defeat in seven years in ODIs.
England return to T20Is after lifting the T20 World Cup 2022 trophy in November 2022 in Australia. But since then, their performances in white-ball cricket have not been convincing. They lost ODIs against South Africa and Australia before turning their fortunes with an ODI win against Bangladesh.
However, the Three Lions will be without the services of Harry Brook and Ben Stokes, who were part of the recent Test outings against New Zealand. That might prompt the management to hand the 18-year-old spin all-rounder Rehan Ahmed a T20I debut, who recently became England’s youngest player to play Tests and ODIs. England’s only T20I encounter against Bangladesh came during the T20 World Cup 2021 where they chased a 125-run target with eight wickets remaining.
Match Details:
Venue: Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium, Chattogram
Date & Time: March 9, 02:30 PM IST
Telecast & Streaming Details: FanCode
Pitch Report:
Chattogram’s Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium offers a balanced surface in T20Is. Batters are likely to score big knocks with very little help from the pacers. Spinners might enjoy a good turn once the ball gets old. The average first innings score here is 145 with teams batting first winning ten of 20 T20Is so far.
Probable Playing XIs for BAN vs ENG:
Bangladesh:
Litton Das, Najmul Shanto, Rony Talukdar, Shakib Al Hasan (c), Towhid Hrifoy, Afif Hossain, Nurul Hasan (wk), Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Hasan Mahmud, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman
England:
Jos Buttler (c & wk), Phil Salt, Ben Duckett, Dawid Malan, Will Jacks, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid
Probable Best Performers from BAN vs ENG:
Probable best batter: Jos Buttler
England skipper scored 111 runs from three ODIs against Bangladesh including a fifty in the second game. In his last T20 outing, he was the leading run-getter in the SA20 2023 tournament. Buttler was England’s leading run-getter in the T20 World Cup 2022 with 225 runs from six innings and will be looking forward to continuing the momentum against Bangladesh.
Probable best bowler: Adil Rashid
The 35-year-old English spinner has been in sensational form in white-ball cricket. He took eight wickets from three ODIs against Bangladesh to become England’s third-highest leading wicket-taker in 50-over cricket. Rashid was excellent in SA20 2023 taking 14 wickets from 10 innings for Pretoria Capitals.