Bangladesh faces high-flying Afghanistan in the opening match of Asia Cup 2022 at the Sharjah Cricket Ground on Tuesday, August 30. All eyes will be on Shakib Al Hasan as the newly-appointed captain is entrusted with reversing Bangladesh's bad fortunes in the shortest format of the game.
Bangladesh were runners-up in the last two editions of the Asia Cup, including the 2016 edition where the tournament was played in the T20I format for the first time. But in recent times, things have not been the same for Bangladesh. They have just two wins in 13 T20Is since 2021's T20 World Cup and head into the Asia Cup after losing their T20I series 1-2 to Zimbabwe.
Drawn in Group B, Bangladesh cannot afford another slip, with only two of the three teams progressing from each group to the Super 4s. They will be without Liton Das, who has a good record in T20Is before his retirement, and the top order will need to face the might of the Afghanistan pacers Fazalhaq Farooqi and Naveen-ul-Haq, who broke the Sri Lankan batting's backbone to reduce them to a meagre total of 105 runs in their first match of the competition.
The onus will be on Mohammad Naim and Anamul Haque, but they will definitely be bolstered by the return of Sabbir Rahman, who will boost their lower-middle order batting as Bangladesh seek better performances. It is definitely not going to be easy for Bangladesh against Afghanistan, who are brimming with confidence after thrashing Sri Lanka by eight wickets in their opening match of Asia Cup 2022.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan will be hoping to seal a berth in the Super 4s with a win on Tuesday. The spin trio of Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman were top-class against Sri Lanka and will be ready to have a go against the Bangladesh batters.
Speaking ahead of the game, Bangladesh all-rounder Mehedy Hasan said his team would like to respond to Dasun Shanaka's claim that Bangladesh was the easier team to beat and not Afghanistan. "I don't want to make a comment that this team is good and this team is bad. I think good and bad are proven in the field. A good team can lose if they play badly on that specific day and similarly a bad team can win if they play a good game of cricket.
''We will meet on the field and at that end of the day the good team will win the match and what I feel is that we have to prove it on the field because if we play well certainly everyone will know who is a good team and who is a bad team so instead of predicting before I think it is important to play well on the field,'' said Hasan.
Bangladesh squad for Asia cup 2022
Mohammad Naim, Anamul Haque, Shakib Al Hasan (captain), Afif Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim (wicketkeeper), Mahmudullah, Sabbir Rahman, Mahedi Hasan, Mohammad Saifuddin, Nasum Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Mosaddek Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Ebadot Hossain, Parvez Hossain Emon.
Afghanistan squad for Asia cup 2022
Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wicketkeeper), Ibrahim Zadran, Najibullah Zadran, Karim Janat, Mohammad Nabi (captain), Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Naveen-ul-Haq, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Samiullah Shinwari, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Afsar Zazai, Fareed Ahmad Malik, Usman Ghani, Noor Ahmad
