Sports Reporter :
Bangladesh will take on South Africa in their Group-1 match of the ICC T20 World Cup at Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in the United Arab Emirates today. The match will start at 4.00pm (BST).
State-owned television channel BTV, private satellite channel GTV and private satellite sports channel T Sports will telecast the match live from the arena.
South Africa took the second position in the points table of Group-1 collecting four points from three matches, while Bangladesh remained with naught from three matches.
South Africa made a sorrow start in their Group-1 campaign as they suffered a five-wicket defeat to Australia on October 23. South Africa beat West Indies by eight wickets in their second Group-1 match on October 26. South Africa edged past Sri Lanka by four wickets in their third Group-1 match on October 30.
On the other hand, Bangladesh tasted a five-wicket loss to Sri Lanka in their first Group-1 match on October 24. Bangladesh suffered an eight-wicket loss to England on October 27.
Unlucky Bangladesh tasted a narrow three-run loss to West Indies on October 29.
Before today’s match, Bangladesh faced South Africa in six T20I matches. Of them, South Africa won all the matches. But in those days, Bangladesh team were not a notable team and they had not batting and bowling strength like now-a-days.
Head Coach of Bangladesh Cricket team Russell Domingo said, ” Cricket is a popular game in Bangladesh. So, the result of this game is very important. Our team have some outstanding victories in the T20I series this year. We lost to the former world champions for a few wickets or few runs. So, it will be not wise to analyze our team’s performance by the defeats of our team. The team management have taken a big step for the World Cup. Some youngsters have been included in the squad. We are not a low-rated team in the T20 format. I know there are a lot of negative results of our team. But, the team have also some positive results.’
Domingo said, ” Some specialists are criticising some of our players and coaching staff. But, I think our team have improved a lot. We have taken the sixth position from 11th position, according to the latest ICC T20I rankings. It is a big achievement for Bangladesh’s cricket.”
It is a bad news for Bangladesh team that Bangladesh’s key weapon all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan was ruled out from the squad due to hamstring injury.
Bangladesh squad: Mahmudullah Riyad (Captain), Mushfiqur Rahim, Soumya Sarkar, Liton Das, Mohammad Naim, Afif Hossain, Nurul Hasan Sohan, Shamim Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Mahedi Hasan and Nasum Ahmed.
