Bangladesh vs Zimbabwe, 1st T20I at Khulna, Preview: Disgraced Zimbabwe look to winning start

Zimbabwe will look to bury the disgrace of their defeat by associates Afghanistan and by landing on a winning start against Bangladesh

Zimbabwe will look to bury the disgrace of their defeat by associates Afghanistan and the best way to achieve that would be to land a winning start against Bangladesh in their backyard at Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium at Khulna on Friday in the first match of the four-game Twenty20 International (T20I) series. Bangladesh had an excellent start to last year when they gained three win in seven group matches played at the ICC World Cup 2015 where they faced India in the qualifier stage. They knuckled down England who was potential lifters of ICC World Cup 2015 to proceed to the knock outs. LIVE FULL SCORECARD: Bangladesh vs Zimbabwe, 1st T20I at Khulna

Bangladesh continued the momentum in future series by winning the home series against Pakistan in One-Day Internationals (ODIs), but lost the Tests match against the visitors. They also won the series against India after the miserable loss against the visitors at the ICC World Cup 2015. Bangladesh has had a phenomenal cricket graph last year and will look to maintain the same in the coming year.

Zimbabwe had a very unpleasant end to the year 2015 and an equally disgraceful start to the New Year as the surging Afghanistan team beat them in the ODI as well as the T20I series in that period. Zimbabwe is a strong team with tons of potential. As a result, they even lost out on the ICC rankings of top 10 teams as Afghanistan preceded Zimbabwe after their win in the series last month. ALSO READ: Zimbabwe appoints Makhaya Ntini as assistant bowling coach

Bangladesh will witness many uncapped players in their T20I series against Zimbabwe like Nurul Hasan and Abu Hider. Hider has shown impressive performance in the Bangladesh Premier League by picking 21 wickets while Hasan has struck the chord by his strong batting skills in the tournament. While Zimbabwe has shown potential in their bowling end with Chamu Chibhabha 4-25 against Afghanistan and Luke Jongwe’s five-wicket haul for just six runs. They have a strong batting line up as well with Hamilton Masakadza and Graeme Cremer who portrayed strong batting side in the previous matches. ALSO READ: Uncapped Nurul Hasan, Abu Hider in Bangladesh’s T20I squad for Zimbabwe series

Zimbabwe has also roped in former South African bowler Makhaya Ntini to better the bowling performance in the coming series. In addition they have appointed Marvan Atapattu, former Sri Lankan coach and batsman, for some improvements in the batting department.

The teams have clashed last year and Bangladesh won the series at their home ground, while Zimbabwe managed to win just one the T20I match against the hosts. This time Zimbabwe will definitely look to do better than that though a series win immediately after the humbling against Afghanistan seems like a very remote possibility. Nonetheless, a strong contest could be expected as each of them is aiming to get to their competitive edge before the ICC World T20 tournament begins.

Squads:                                                             

Bangladesh: Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan, Mashrafe Mortaza (c), Al-Amin Hossain, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Shuvagata Hom, Arafat Sunny, Sabbir Rahman, Mushfiqur Rahman (wk), Mustafizur Rahman, Nurul Hasan, Abu Hider.

Zimbabwe: Tendai Chisoro, Luke Jongwe, Elton Chigumbura (c), Hamilton Masakadza, Peter Moor, Taurai Muzarabani, Sikandar Raza, Malcolm Waller, Chamu Chibhabha, Graeme Cremer, Neville Madziva, Wellington Masakadza, Richmond Mutumbami (wk), Vusi Sibanda, Brian Vitori, Sean Williams

Time: 14:30 IST| 15:00 local | 9:00 GMT

(Shruti Hariharan is Content Writer with CricketCountry. You can follow her on Twitter at @Shruti_2890)

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