Bangladesh will face Afghanistan today to keep their hopes alive in the Asia Cup. The match will be a matter of life and death for the Litons at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. The match will start at 8:30 pm Bangladesh time. It will be shown on T Sports and Nagorik TV.
Bangladesh has made its way difficult after defeating Hong Kong by 7 wickets in the first match of the group stage, but in the second match, it has lost to Sri Lanka by 6 wickets. Now it is just a game of equations. This group is no longer called the Group of Death. Two teams from Group B will go to the Super Four. This is the last match of the group stage for Bangladesh. So, Liton Das has to win to survive.
On the other hand, Afghanistan has only played with Hong Kong so far and has increased its run rate a lot with an easy win of 94 runs. Now even if they cannot defeat Bangladesh, the match against Sri Lanka is their last chance. However, if Bangladesh can beat Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, they will go straight to the Super Four.
In such an equation, Bangladesh captain Liton Das promised to turn things around strongly. After the defeat to Sri Lanka, he said, ‘We know this is a life-or-death match. We will try our best to win.’
However, the statistics are not very encouraging for Bangladesh. Bangladesh and Afghanistan have faced each other 12 times in this format so far—where the Afghans have won 7 matches and lost 5. The two teams have met five times in the Asia Cup, with Afghanistan winning 3 and Bangladesh 2. They met once in the 2022 T20 Asia Cup, which Afghanistan won by 7 wickets.
Overall, Afghanistan is considered a strong team in T20Is. However, there is no mentality in the Bangladesh team to give up the match. Zakir Ali said in the post-match press conference, ‘There is nothing to lose hope. We will play to win. We have improved a lot in this edition.’
Before coming to the Asia Cup, Bangladesh won three consecutive series against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Netherlands. So Zaker Ali thinks that Bangladesh is a good team in pressure matches.
Pacer Taskin Ahmed was dropped from the previous match for tactical reasons. However, he can return to the team in the ‘must win’ match. Afghanistan, however, suffered a setback before this match. Fast bowler Naveen ul Haq has been dropped. However, he has not played any match. He is still fighting to recover. Abdullah Ahmadzai is returning as his replacement.
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