Bangladesh and Zimbabwe will be desperately searching for winning combinations for the upcoming World Twenty20 when they clash in the four-match series in Khulna starting today. With the Asia Cup T20 looming and the World T20 to follow, both are eyeing the T20 series as a chance to experiment with line-ups in the hope of finding a successful formula.
Bangladesh enjoyed their best year in ODI cricket in 2015 but continued to struggle in the T20s, and are ranked 10th in the world, behind Afghanistan.
Tigers coach Chandika Hathurusingha said his team would be juggling trying to win the series against Zimbabwe with trying out different players. “We still want to win but we will experiment in terms of combinations,” Hathurusingha told reporters in Khulna.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe bin Mortaza hinted to play at least two of the three – Abu Haider Rony, Shuvagata Hom and Nurul Hasan – and said, “We want to see how they perform in order to find out the best possible combination for future international games.”
Zimbabwe were thrashed 3-0 in the ODI series against Bangladesh in November but managed to salvage a draw in the subsequent two-match T20 series 1-1.
Zimbabwe won the second and final T20 match by three wickets, ending their 13-match losing streak to Bangladesh in all formats of the game since April 2013.
As well as cementing combinations, Zimbabwe will be looking to boost morale after recent losses to Afghanistan in the both ODI and T20 international series in the United Arab Emirates which ended earlier this month.
“We need to try different combination which we think will work at the World T20. So at the moment we have 16 guys here instead of 15. In the next four games you won’t be shocked to see different guys batting in different batting positions,” said the visiting captain Elton Chigumbura.