BSS, Dhaka :
The Bangladesh Cricket team will leave Dhaka for Chattogram today to prepare themselves for the first Test against Sri Lanka, starting on May 15 at Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.
The members called up for the first cricket Test also will report tomorrow in Dhaka, before they board the Chattogram flight at night, a Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) official said. Practice of the Tigers at Chattogram will include an intra-squad practice game. Bangladesh are low in confidence at the moment following their disappointing series loss to South Africa.
They came to South Africa with an aim to win at least one Test match and they started with bang, winning the three-match ODI series by 2-1 on South African soil for the first time.
However, they failed to translate their ODI form to Test cricket and lost all of those two matches in disappointing fashion.
But despite that they will be eying to bring a good result against Sri Lank as they are playing the series on home soil.
Bangladesh, so far, played 22 Test matches against Sri Lanka, the highest number of matches they played against single country. Of the Test matches, they won one and lost 17 while four of the matches ended in a draw.
Sri Lanka won the first 12 matches in a row between September 2001 and March 2013 after which Bangladesh turned the tide. In the lass 10 Test matches between the two sides, Bangladesh though lost five, they won one in 2017 and forced Sri Lanka to draw four matches.
Bangladesh will definitely be eying to keep up their improvement. Even though the Tigers had a hard time in South Africa, they have already got a memorable win against New Zealand at the start of this year and that too on New Zealand’s soil.
Bangladesh’s win over New Zealand keeps them above England in the WTC Standings at this moment.
Bangladesh squad for first Test:
Mominul Haque (Captain), Tamim Iqbal Khan, Mahmudul Hasan Joy, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Liton Das, Yasir Ali Chowdhury, Taijul Islam, Nayeem Hasan, Ebadot Hossain Chowdhury, Syed Khaled Ahmed, Quazi Nurul Hasan Sohan, Rejaur Rahman Raja, Shohidul Islam, Mosaddek Hossain Saikat and Shoriful Islam (subject to fitness).
